Starlight
by yellowcottondresses
Summary: Layla Grant has everything - record deal, perfect boyfriend, the entire city of Nashville eating out of the palm of her hand. She's got a future paved with success. But when she's suddenly faced with a choice she didn't plan on, she finds she's on her own for the first time in her life. And how do you make decisions when your entire life, someone else has always led the way?
1. About A Girl

**Author's Note: This will remain canon right up until the latest episode, "Too Far Gone". Hopefully I can write as much as I can before the episodes start catching up with me. Right now, it's planned between 9-10 chapters. **

**Also: Please forgive me for the MASSIVE cliché I am about to drop on you. I HATE HATE HATE clichés but hopefully it's less grave of a sin if I commit it in Chapter 1 than if I leave you waiting halfway through the fic. This idea came to me right after the mid-season finale in December, and wouldn't leave me alone until I started writing it down.**

**I don't own Nashville, or anything affiliated. **

**I.**

She broke down and finally bought a test the day she flew back from LA.

Will hadn't been the one to call her; Jeff had. Directly.

She went straight to Edgehill from the airport. A car was there to pick her up.

It hadn't even been a week after Juliette's bombshell Opry induction, Jeff dropping her from the label, then subsequently yanking Scarlett O'Connor out of her opening slot on Luke Wheeler's tour and replacing her with Layla and Will, so now it was only Edgehill artists.

Jeff pulled them into his office, and laid down the bottom line. They would be recording their albums in Nashville during the week, and then on the weekends fly out to whatever city where Luke was performing. They would stick to the same sets, follow Luke for the next four months until he finished the tour, and in the meantime, try not to fuck any shit up.

"You got nothin' to worry about," Will said. "We're not setting off alarms anytime soon."

Jeff's eyes had darted to her boyfriend, who for all his height and broadness seemed to shrink under that gaze.

"The answer you should be giving me," Jeff said coolly, "is that you're never going to set off any alarms. Because you both are going to do _nothing_, except exactly what is expected of you. Which is going onstage, singing your songs, and playing up your hashtag romance for the fans. That is IT."

He cocked his head, and not for the first time, Layla thought of reptiles. Lizards. Their dragon scales, their lifeless eyes; the way they darted in and out of the shadows, slithering and hissing.

"Anything else," he said, making his voice just loud enough that she and Will had to strain to hear it, "and you both can go back to singing in karaoke bars for beer money. This town has plenty of up-and-comers who are willing to play by the rules, and you two are just as easily replaceable as Scarlett was on this tour."

She tried not to let her face twitch when Jeff's eyes landed directly on her. She kept her head up, trying not to think about anything except what he couldn't prove – about her, about Juliette, about the rumors of Charlie Wentworth, and all the mess that had unfolded since that night at the festival.

So that was the story – part of it, anyway – of how she had ended up at the pharmacy on the opposite end of town. A bandanna was hiding her hair, and she had on a bulky sweater to hide the rest of her frame, her face was free of make-up to avoid being spotted. She made sure to spend time in the store looking for other things to buy – a new toothbrush, a bottle of conditioner, a diet iced tea from the freezer in the back, some pretzels and hand sanitizer – before ending up in the pharmacy section, casually knocking down one of the boxes off the shelf.

Because this had all big one big accident.

It's not like she hadn't noticed things were different. It had just been easier to NOT notice certain things lately. Like it had been easier, when she was crashing at Will's instead of in and out of hotel rooms, to ignore that the bag of tampons she kept in the lining of her suitcase wasn't getting any less empty.

The cashier, a kid not much older than she was with a bad case of acne spreading across his cheeks, didn't even look at Layla as she paid. Even the box she had clutched in her hand – and tried not to struggle to relinquish – was just scanned and dropped into the white plastic bag, along with the rest of her things. He printed out the receipt, told her to have a nice day, and gave Layla the bag without ever looking at her face.

Small miracles.

When she hurried out of the store, bag gripped tightly in her hand, Layla caught a glimpse of herself in the side mirror of a car parked in one of the narrow spaces in front of the store, and realized why the bored cashier hadn't even looked at her – she barely recognized herself. The lack of make-up made her look older, somehow, and the bulky clothes she wore made her look heavy and tired. It was like she'd just gotten off from a shift of bagging groceries, or cutting boxes open at a factory. Like she'd been on her feet for ten hours straight, and now just needed to get home, eat a TV dinner, and watch some bad reality TV before crashing on the couch with her socks on.

Layla turned away from the stranger in the car's mirror. The plastic bag burned a hole in her side the entire walk home.

When she got back to the house, Gunnar and Zoey were watching TV on the couch, and Will was out getting dinner. Without her. Layla said hi to both of them, then went upstairs, trying to look like she had somewhere to be, or actually had someone waiting for her up there.

She made sure the door to Will's upstairs apartment was locked, and then checked twice that the bathroom was locked as well. She dumped out everything from the bag into the sink – had she really bought all this crap? – and pulled out the only thing she needed.

It was a minute before she could take it out of the box, another minute before she could unwrap it from its plastic shell. Another minute before she could actually follow the instructions, because she had to keep re-reading them. Just in case she did something wrong, and got the answer she wasn't supposed to get.

But she didn't – she followed the directions exactly, like she'd done her entire life. Because, like she'd told Will only a few days ago (god, it felt like months), she always did what was expected of her. She'd always listened to what people told her to do, always did what made them proud.

She had always been a good girl.

She set the alarm on her phone to beep after exactly three minutes. No more, no less. There could be no margin for error. She sat on the closed toilet lid and waited, waited, waited, hands folded neatly in her lap like they'd been when she'd sat in Jeff's office earlier that day. She remembered what he'd said, about her and Will being the future of Edgehill, about scandals.

She remembered also what he'd said the night of the Festival. About her contract being in jeopardy if he knew she tipped off the press in the first place, officially starting this whole mess. Which she was sure would have long since blown over by now. But it hadn't, and now –

The timer rang.

She stared at it, then back at her hands. At the small white stick in them, clenched in her fists, slick with sweat. She took a breath, then another, then another, and then finally opened her hands, to check the results of the only test in her entire life that she'd ever wanted to fail.

**II.**

Lately, she'd been dreaming of a girl made of light.

It started a few days after she and Gunnar's failed writing attempt, and then him suggesting she ought to start a journal. The Office Depot nearby was having a sale, three single-subject spiral notebooks for five bucks, and she bought one purple, one yellow, one black.

She started the black one first.

In the beginning, she'd been paralyzed, just like she had the day she told Will she was a blank. Because she spent almost two hours staring at an empty page, willing the words to come. Or even a thought, or a feeling, or _something_. Anything.

She'd almost started crying again, and that same voice that told her she was nothing because she had nothing to say came back and kept repeating it, and eventually she started writing that, because she just wanted to write something down _so badly_, just to make that page stop taunting her with its emptiness. Empty like everything she felt like she was, and probably always had been.

So she wrote it down – _I feel like a blank_ – and then kept writing, going off of that, first finding synonyms for blank like _empty_ and _nothing_ and _waste of space_, before she started writing about how long she'd felt like this.

Which she realized had been for most of her life.

Then she wrote about Will, when he held her and stroked her hair, telling her she'd find her way. How it felt to spend that night staring up at the ceiling of his dark little bedroom, with him sleeping beside her, his arm resting on her waist. About how she stared at the ceiling for so long that her eyes started to water and everything blurred, and she didn't realize she'd started crying again until she wiped her face with the back of her hand and found her cheeks wet with tears.

Then, the night after that, she'd woken up in the darkness from a dream about a girl.

She'd been made of golden light, and surrounded by walls of glass. The girl was little, only about six or seven, and barefoot on a white marble floor, her toes wiggling upward because the floor was too cold, and she had dark, thick hair that someone – her mother – was twirling in her steady, capable hands, trying to twist into some impossibly sophisticated style.

The girl was staring at her reflection in one of the mirrors, the dark hair and the hazel eyes and the way the light pulsed around her. Like it breathed along with her, and she glowed whenever her small chest moved in and out.

She wanted to spin, wanted to break away from the hands holding her hair and just twirl in the light, but when she did, the hands of the mother jerked her back.

"Hold still," the mother said briskly. "I mean it, Layla. I have to finish this, so we can see if it works with your dress."

The little girl, itching to spin in the room made of light. She felt it from the bottoms of her feet all the way to the top of her head, where her mother was still twisting that river of thick dark hair into a perfect pageant knot with an annoyed scowl on her face.

The girl looked into the glass all around her and felt like she was floating in the golden shine of her reflection, over and over again in the bright little room. It was like standing on a star, or being one herself.

Then Layla woke up, practically bolted upright in bed. Will shifted beside her, turning over blearily.

"Whuzzgoin' on?" he mumbled. "Whuh…"

"Nothing," she said, already reaching for that little black journal while he fell back asleep.

Then she wrote.

For days, all she'd had were words and words and words about how blank she felt inside, and now she had something else to put down – that little girl spinning in a room full of light. Except in Layla's journal, in her own words, there were no mother's disapproving hands to hold her down, and no cold, hard floor under her little bare feet. There was nothing above or below that girl. She was just spinning, free, in a world made of gold and glass.

She was a star.

Layla wrote it down. All of it. Everything she could remember, except the things she didn't want to. And what she didn't want to remember, she turned into something else, like making the mother's hands disappear, along with the weight of them keeping that girl from spinning in the light.

It all poured out of her so fast that she had no idea where it really had come from, but it came out so easily that her pen had a hard time keeping up with her head, and in some places her writing was illegible from where she'd struggled so hard to get the words out of her before they disappeared entirely.

When she was done and finally closed the book, she tried to lay down in Will's arms again, but felt too keyed up to close her eyes, like she'd just drank an entire pot of coffee. So she just lay there beside him, replaying the image over and over again, trying to scour her mind for any new details about that girl in the room full of light. Nothing came to mind, but she felt like she was spinning herself, filled with the same pulsing glow that radiated through that little space.

In the morning, she felt stupid looking at it, and even stupider for actually having written it. She'd bought this journal for songwriting, and this wasn't a song. It wasn't even her feelings, either, which was what Gunnar had advised her to do with the whole journal idea in the first place. So while she waited for Will to get out of the shower so she could take hers, Layla thought about tearing the pages out and just sticking to what Gunnar had said, like the pages she'd written before her dream.

Except, she really couldn't.

She felt attached to that little girl, for some reason – the girl in her head, not the one in her memory, with the mother's hands tying her down with disappointment and expectation. And just as she'd been ready to tear the pages out, Layla closed her eyes and saw her again: that girl in that room, and only that girl.

She turned the page.

Then she started writing about the smell of the room. How it was like cold cream and hairspray, and how the hem of the girl's dress was white and ruffled; how her bare feet wiggled on the cracks in the floor, itching to be free and fly.

By the time it was her turn in the shower, she had every detail of the room written down in her black notebook. It wasn't a song and it wasn't feelings – it wasn't even really a story, not in the sense that it was anything Layla ever thought she'd want to read – but it made her feel like spinning herself, as she stood under the hose of Will's shower and felt the steam rise around her.

That girl in the room was spinning. Fearless, free. Light as a star, sailing through the black, black sky.

**III.**

The plus sign stared up at her. It was big as expectation, heavy as disappointment. Like those mother's hands, in that little gold room.

And real as the words she'd put down on paper, both about the little spinning girl and the emptiness inside herself.

She stared down at that plus sign.

Not so empty, not anymore.

**IV.**

"I mean…that's impossible."

The doctor peered at her over his notes. "Were you and your partner having sex?"

"Yeah, I mean – "

"Did you use protection?"

"Yes," she insisted. "All the time." And it was true. If there was one thing she and Will were always diligent about, it was using condoms. She wasn't some stupid little girl. "I mean, we were always super careful."

"Were you on birth control?"

She shook her head. "No, I wasn't on the pill –"

She'd wanted to go in it, back in high school, but she knew she could never actually bring up the idea with her parents without them automatically assuming the worst from her. Besides, she'd heard the pill could make you gain weight.

The doctor shrugged.

"Well, then," he said. "Sometimes, accidents just happen."

"No," she said. "Not…"

He looked back at her, too calm. It was surreal, how he could act like he just told her the time or weather, not like he'd totally shaken up her whole world from a different place it had been five minutes ago.

"We were careful," Layla finished. Her voice trailed off more and more with each syllable, until she could barely hear the words in her own head. She stared down at the tiled floor. "We were always careful."

His face didn't change. "I don't know what to tell you, Miss Grant."

She stared at the laces of her shoes, the scuffed soles. "But these things are wrong all the time, right? I mean…"

"Not if you're using them correctly. Were you following the directions?"

She bristled. "I know how to pee on a stick."

"Well, then, it sounds like you did everything right, and got accurate results." His bland expression didn't change. "Just not the ones you were hoping for."

**V.**

She took a cab home, and had it drop her off about a half mile from the house so she could walk back, giving herself some time to catch her breath. It was freezing outside, the sky heavy and grey, but she tucked her head against the wind and kept up her brisk pace, marching through the cold, silent streets.

The whole way home, she'd been thinking about that little girl, spinning in the golden room. That little star, crashing through the sky.

Layla had studied stars before. She knew they created themselves against all reason, against logic. They shouldn't exist, but they managed anyway. They were creation in chaos, in emptiness; something bright and burning and living, when there was once nothing at all.

Like that spinning little girl; made of starlight, hurtling a million miles an hour through the endless black void of space.

Will was packing his suitcase when she came up the stairs, her fingers numb and bits of windblown hair clinging to her chapped lips.

"Hey," he said, without looking up. He was busy tossing his jeans into the suitcase without folding them, just throwing them in faded bundles into the bottom of his worn grey duffle. "Glad you're back. Gunnar and Zoey wanna take us out to dinner tomorrow night. You know, to celebrate the tour. I already said we could go. I'm not in the studio, and I didn't think you had anything. Just needed to make sure."

Layla blinked at him. She wasn't so sure about the rest of it, but she did know the first three words he'd said – _glad you're back._

He still didn't look over at her, as he proceeded to lift his entire sock-and-underwear drawer out of his dresser and dump the whole thing out into his suitcase. "Think they want to go for barbeque. Hope that's okay."

She watched as he wadded up some undershirts and boxers and tried to make them fit in the overstuffed bag.

"Don't worry," he was saying, grunting a little as he forced the zipper shut. "We won't be out late. Gunnar knows we have an early flight."

She watched him. The way he didn't turn to look at her. The way he was so tall, standing in front of the only window in the room. He could block out the sun, if only there was one shining through the clouds.

He peered over his shoulder and finally caught her eye, frowning.

"You okay?" he asked. "You're white as a sheet."

He didn't move closer to her, or reach out a hand.

She made herself unstick her throat.

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head. "No, I'm totally fine."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Well, which is it? Yeah or no?"

She looked up at him, the slight not-really-smile on his face. She stepped closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, and reached up on her tiptoes for a kiss. Even then, he had to bend down to meet her.

"I'm fine," she said, when their lips broke apart. "I'm okay. Everything's fine."


	2. Encounters

**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! **

**I.**

It was barely nine AM, but the two of them were in Jeff's office for another meeting. He'd said it was to finalize the tour details, but it didn't take an acceptance to Harvard to understand what it was REALLY about.

Juliette's Opry performance was still headlining on every major news outlet (Jesus, was there NO other news? Who wanted to waste time on that skank, anyway?) and her getting dropped from Edgehill was a close second place. They were damage control, and both of them knew it.

It was a cold, bleak morning; the bedroom had been freezing when her alarm went off. She turned over to wake Will, but he was already gone. She'd hobbled in and out of the shower, shivering every time her bare feet touched his wooden floor, teeth chattering nonstop as she struggled to put on her jeans and blouse in the icy darkness of Will's room. She went downstairs, hair still damp, to find Will drinking coffee in the silent kitchen, lights still turned off and shades drawn. She could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't slept much, if at all.

She had sat down on the couch, still combing her fingers through her hair, and was surprised when Will suddenly appeared at her elbow, handing her a steaming cup of coffee and a few packets of artificial sweetener.

She'd blinked.

"Thanks," she'd managed.

Will had nodded. He hadn't smiled, but hadn't frowned either, and when her fingers closed around the warm ceramic she breathed in the fresh dark jolt, trying not to think about how his skin was turning the same grey, washed-out color of the empty winter sky.

She'd tipped the steaming mug to her lips, ready to take a sip, when a thought suddenly popped into her head:

_You shouldn't be drinking that._

It had startled her, and she'd almost dropped the entire hot cup of burning liquid all over her lap. Instead she'd stared at it, looking into the cup like she could make out her glassy reflection in the surface. She stared into it until the warmth in her fingers began to fade and she was staring into dark, cold sludge.

She'd glanced over at Will, standing at the kitchen counter, just sipping his coffee and staring at the wall in silence. He didn't look at her last night under the covers, just did his job with his face in her neck. He never looked at her much these days, but she looked at him, and saw the color fading in his eyes, dimming like a light going out.

Now they drove in silence, the sky going from black to silver to a bare grey the closer they got to the city. Will borrowed Gunnar's truck for the morning, before he and Zoey were even awake; they got in late last night, some dinner party with a bunch of Zoey's friends from her church. Will kept taking one hand off the wheel to rub his jaw tiredly, and Layla kept her hands folded in her lap, palms resting on her still-flat stomach.

He'd skimmed her belly last night, when he unbuttoned her pants. His palm had rested for just a moment on the expanse of skin just above her waist, fingers splayed across her hip bones, and when he touched her there she swore something inside her actually jumped.

So she didn't drink the coffee that morning. Though she was starting to regret it, the closer they got to the Edgehill building. Especially as Jeff's secretary greeted them and told them to wait while she let him know they were here.

"He'll be right with you," she'd said with a smile. "Go on ahead."

Great.Because what went better with a grey, dreary morning than a visit with Jeff Fordham, dealing with the latest Juliette scandal.

And by the time Jeff bristled into his office, steam practically pouring out of his ears, Layla knew she was right.

"I'll get right to it," he said, sitting down at his desk without greeting either of them. "You guys are in the middle of a shitstorm, and there's every chance you're both dead in the water already."

Will sat back and absorbed this wordlessly.

"Because of the thing with Juliette?" Layla made herself ask. As if she already didn't know.

Jeff gave her a look like he already knew she was bullshitting him.

"Yes, Layla," he said, "because of the Juliette thing. Because of the Juliette thing you unsuccessfully tried to remedy, not for lack of trying."

"Hey, at least I was doing something," she shot back.

Jeff narrowed his eyes at her.

"I have been called personally by nine major vendors from around the country," he said coldly, "saying that they are willing to breach contract to drop anyone related to Juliette Barnes in any way. I have been contacted by the CFO of this business, telling me that I will could this company millions, which by extension puts both your contracts in serious jeopardy."

The words he told her at the festival echoed through her head. She thought he probably used that specific phrasing on purpose; if he suspected she was behind the Wentworth scandal, he most likely blamed her for all of this, too, as an extension of that.

She kept her face blank.

Jeff's cold eyes darted between her and Will, sitting inches apart on the couch. His expression was reptilian, like she could see a forked tongue hissing out behind his straight, gleaming teeth.

"You two," he said, his voice dropping an octave, "are facing your careers ending before they start. Because of this, being associated with Juliette will hurt your reputations."

"But we didn't do anything," Will said, sounding defeated. "And didn't Layla clear this up when she said the shot was doctored?"

"Yes, well," Jeff said, looking over her, and she felt like he'd frozen her in place on the couch, "one would think that someone with a sterling reputation could clear that up, but that little…" his face twitched angrily "_stunt _at the Opry proved otherwise."

Will frowned.

"Jeff, man," he said. "I'm not trying to sound difficult here, but…what do you need us to do?"

Jeff didn't respond at first. Just settled his gaze on the two of them.

Even Will had to move back a little, at the look on his face.

"You two," he said, his voice still low, "are here to tell me that you are going to be as good as fucking gold. No screw-ups, no scandals, no denying God or breaking up marriages or even admitting to not flossing. You two are going to press engagements all over the country – in places that will even associate with anything related to Juliette Barnes, that is – and make sure you sing all the right words." He raised an eyebrow at both of them. "Like the songbirds you both are."

His black, black, black eyes stared the both of them down. She kept her face even and tried very hard not to squirm. Beside her, Will was shifting.

"This label has had enough wild card behavior from artists who think their spoiled attitudes keep them immune to the rules of the world," Jeff said, his voice like iron. His eyes narrowed. She really did expect him to stick out his forked tongue and hiss at them for a moment. "And let me make this clear – Edgehill will not represent any artist who thinks they can trash the image of country music and walk away without facing the consequence. Because that shit doesn't fly anywhere in life – and it sure as hell doesn't fly here in this office."

He stared down at the both of them, eyes dark and slitted, like a snake coiled in the chair.

"Do I make myself," he whispered, "abundantly clear?"

Layla froze. He looked at her, and it hit her right away – he _did_ know. He knew all about what she'd done. He may not have had the proof to back it up and have a concrete reason to blame her, but it didn't matter. Whatever had gone down with Juliette and the Wentworth scandal, Jeff knew she was behind it, and everything else that had happened since then.

All he needed was the smoking gun.

For some insane reason, she had a flash of Will singing about a smoking gun back in Minneapolis, that night at the bar. When he dove off the edge and fell straight through the air, landing like a broken thing on the cold, hard ground, with nothing and no one around to stop the freefall.

Layla looked over at Will. Will, for once, was looking right at her. They both knew for once what the other was thinking – they were fucked, and this was their last-ditch attempt to dig themselves out.

Jeff sat back in his chair, a signal to the both of them that they were dismissed.

"I expect good things out of the two of you," he said, as Will held the door open for Layla on the way out. "I trust you both know what's at stake here."

Will caught her eye once more as they walked out the door.

"Yes sir," he said to Jeff.

Layla didn't answer. She lingered in the hallway, heart hammering.

"Layla," Jeff called, after a moment. "A word."

Will looked at her and shrugged. She bit her lip and walked back inside, careful to keep her face expressionless.

Jeff was turning side to side in his desk chair as the door shut behind her. Compared to how he'd looked a moment ago, the look on his face now was almost casual, like they were chatting over coffee.

"Just wanted you to know that your album drops May first," Jeff said.

She blinked. "The same day as Will's?"

"Two major Edgehill releases on the same day, two of the most anticipated albums of the year." He smirked. "Thought you'd be pleased."

"I am," she said hurriedly. "Just…surprised, is all. I mean, we don't have any tracks for the album, and I haven't been in the studio…"

"That's what airplanes are for," Jeff said. "Like I said. You work here during the week, tour with Luke on the weekends."

She nodded. "Sounds busy."

Jeff let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. He suddenly stopped rotating in his chair, and leaned over his desk, arms folded.

"I just wanted you to know," he said, his voice quiet and precise, "that if you really had anything to do with all of Juliette Barnes's drama as of late, you now carry the future of an entire label on your shoulders for your troubles."

Her stomach dropped. "Jeff, I didn't –"

He cut her off with a raise of his finger. Suddenly, it was the night of the festival again, and she was shaking under his gaze.

"Like I said," Jeff said coldly. "There is always going to be another runner-up on _American Hitmaker."_

**II.**

The last thing Layla expected to see in the Edgehill lobby was Rayna James, but she almost ran right into the woman as she brushed past Will and hurried out of the elevator, barreling towards the door and almost knocking over a superstar.

"Whoa!" Rayna grabbed her arm to steady her, and then Layla realized who she'd almost run into. "Slow down, girl, you look like someone lit a fire underneath you!"

Layla did stop, but only when she realized who had her by the arm. Instead of apologizing, she just stared.

Behind Rayna, a small girl Layla half-recognized came into view, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Mom," she said, dragging the one word into about four syllables, "are we almost done?"

It took Layla a second to place her. Mayor Conrad's younger daughter. Layla had met her at the festival, along with her older sister, who didn't seem to be with her or her mother.

Will, who came up behind her, smiled at Rayna. The two hugged briefly, then he nodded at the little girl with a grin.

"You guys look pretty stressed," Rayna said, glancing at her and Will. "Did you just come from Jeff's office?"

Will grimaced, looking sheepish. "How can you tell?"

One of Rayna's eyebrows quirked.

"I figured he was completely freaking out about this Juliette business," she said. "I'm just sorry you two have to deal with the blowback of it. Y'all have a lot of promise. Your careers shouldn't take a hit just because of somebody else's decision."

"Mom," the little girl said again. "You said he wouldn't be long!"

Rayna sighed. "Yeah, I know, sweetheart. Hold on a minute, okay? Don't be rude."

The girl scowled. Rayna looked at them and rolled her eyes.

"Came here with Luke," she said. "Then I'm taking Daphne out for lunch; you know, just have a Girl's Day."

"He's taking forever!" Daphne complained.

Rayna gave her a Look.

Layla met Will's eye. He looked away, but she could tell they were thinking the same thing – that Rayna had to know about Jeff yanking Scarlett off the tour. Which meant she had to know about Will and Layla replacing her label's featured artist.

Which meant –

"Well, look who it is."

Which meant things couldn't possibly get more awkward at this moment, unless Luke Wheeler decided to show up.

He was heading towards Rayna from the elevator, stopping to give her a quick kiss before slipping an arm around her and smiling at the two of them.

"Hey, look," he said. "It's my new tour mates."

Will smiled, but it looked like he was choking slightly. Layla tried not to bite her lip.

Daphne wrinkled her nose. "I thought Scarlett was on your tour, Luke."

Luke stared off somewhere past Rayna's shoulder. Will cleared his throat and put his hands on his hips.

"Congratulations!" Rayna said loudly, like that might cover the awkwardness. "You know it's a big opportunity."

"Exactly," Luke said, his voice equally hearty. Or maybe that was just how he talked all the time. Layla didn't know him well enough to know for sure. "Nothing as big as a Luke Wheeler tour. 'Specially for Edgehill's new rising stars!"

"But what happened to Scarlett?" Daphne persisted.

Layla, Luke, Will, and Rayna all exchanged one quick, slightly tortured look, then looked down at the floor and pretended to follow the pattern of the tiles.

"So," Rayna said finally, beaming at them all, "we are going to get going!"

She took Daphne's hand. "I promised this one lunch at the Green Hills Grill, and uh, Luke, I think had some video promo to shoot, so…"

Will nodded, his smile too wide.

"Right," he was saying, hands still on his hips. "Right. And we got stuff to do. Right, Layla?"

"Right!" Layla chimed in, gesturing for emphasis. "Way, way, _way_ busy."

"Of course," Rayna agreed loudly.

Luke was bobbing his head up and down, like it was attached to a string.

"Should head to that promo shoot," he said, clearing his throat. "Downtown traffic, and all."

"Right," Will and Rayna said at the same time.

Daphne was watching all of them, her brow furrowed. Rayna practically carted her away.

"Bye, y'all!" she said, as she hurried out the door. "And congrats on the tour!"

Daphne was still looking at them over her shoulder, even as the door shut behind her and her mother.

Luke, Layla, and Will all stood rooted in place for a moment, staring anywhere but at each other. Finally, Luke nodded to the two of them, a faint grin spreading across his face.

"Guess I'll be seein' y'all out on the road," he said. "And good luck."

Layla tried to smile back at him. Luke headed out the door, and when he was out of sight Will sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

Layla agreed.

**III.**

Gunnar and Zoey had wanted to check out some new barbeque place for Layla and Will's big farewell dinner, but at the last minute they ended up at a sunken pizzeria not far from the house, squeezing into a booth in the back. Gunnar ordered everybody a round of mozzarella sticks, and when Zoey stole one off of Gunnar's plate he bit it out of her hand. They both laughed and looked so happy that Layla had to look away.

Will wasn't watching them, either. He was staring at the fake wood of the tabletop and occasionally looking around them, as if he was waiting for someone else to join their table. He sat just far enough away from Layla on the little bench so that they weren't actually touching, and eventually she reached over and took his hand under the table.

He took it back, but didn't squeeze it. Or lace their fingers together, or lean over for a kiss. He didn't even look at her, and while she laid her own palm against his rough, calloused one she remembered the night before, when he wouldn't look at her while they moved under the sheets, just went through the motions and kept his head turned away from her.

She looked over at him.

"You okay?" she asked.

He caught her eye, briefly, and tried to smile.

"Just tired," he said.

Layla squeezed his hand. Will didn't respond.

When she looked up, she saw Gunnar watching them, for some reason. His brow was furrowed, mouth tilted down, and when he saw her watching he looked away hurriedly, taking another bite of the mozzarella sticks.

"These things are so good," he said, "I wanna spend a weekend alone with them."

Zoey arched her eyebrows. "Well, honey, that makes me feel kinda awkward."

Gunnar leaned in closer to her.

"You're just insecure cause I'm better lookin'," he teased.

Zoey rolled her eyes.

"You're an idiot," she said. Then she laughed, and Gunnar took her face in her hands and kissed her.

Layla stared at her and Will's clasped palms, limp under the table. She tried not to stare at them, but couldn't help thinking that the way Gunnar teased Zoey made his whole face light up, his voice sound like a song.

Dinner went on and Will stayed quiet, only occasionally smiling at something Gunnar said. The longer his silences became, the more Layla tried not focus on Gunnar and Zoey. The way they volleyed responses between each other, their easy kisses and simple touches, the breeziness of the way they told their inside jokes to each other and laughed. It was like she was catching glimpses of another world, one too private to ever include her.

Layla didn't know Zoey very well, but from what little time they'd spent together, she liked her. Layla especially liked how independent she was – waiting tables and paying her rent with tips, keeping her own apartment even though she had a boyfriend. Zoey didn't have to depend on Gunnar for anything; she didn't need anybody except herself.

Maybe this was the kind of life she would have led, Layla thought. One without beauty pageants or record deals or _American Hitmaker_. Maybe she'd just be a regular college kid, at the library cramming for finals all night hooked up to a caffeine I.V., surrounded by future Nobel Prize winners, and when it was over she'd come here and work a nothing job and try to make it on her own.

No, she thought. She watched Zoey and Gunnar share a cheese stick, Gunnar dipping it in mozzarella before offering it to her with a smile. As hard as Layla tried she couldn't imagine herself in Zoey's place. She never would have gotten into Harvard without the pageants and private schools, never would have gotten the record deal without the show, never would have made it to Nashville without the record deal.

It's not like she would have gotten anywhere on her own. She never would have made it this far. And she wouldn't have been able to just pack up and move to Nashville like that, on her own. Her parents would never have allowed it.

Besides. Without Nashville, she'd never have Will.

_They'd make really good-looking kids_, Layla thought, watching Gunnar and Zoey.

She blinked. Where the hell had that come from?

Will had never kissed her the way that Gunnar kissed Zoey, she thought.

Then, feeling disloyal and crazy jealous at the same time, immediately made herself think of something else.

She decided to think about that girl. The one from her dreams, and the pages of her notebook. The one made of starlight. It made her feel like she could breathe.

As dinner went on Will's silences became longer and longer, Layla kept one hand over her belly and imagined that girl. Spinning around and around and around, safely hidden away from the world.

On the way home, they passed a bar giving an open mic night. A guy and a girl were singing together, both dressed in fringe.

Will smirked when he saw them. "Nice rhinestones."

Zoey laughed.

"I remember when I used to do that," Gunnar said.

Will looked over at him, surprised. "When did that happen?"

"When I was still at the Bluebird," Gunnar said. "Before I got the publishing deal. I couldn't pay the bills just working the sound booth, so I had a weekend job singing in a cowboy saloon on the other side of town."

He winced, as if the mere mention of this lame job was enough to bring back war trauma.

Zoey stared at him. "You never told me that."

Gunnar cringed. "It's not something I brag about."

Will grinned. "I can see why."

Gunnar reached over and tried to punch his arm. Will dodged the hit, a smile on his face for the first time that night.

Layla stared at the expression. He never smiled like that. At least, not around her.

Zoey laughed. "Okay, I would pay you a hundred bucks right now if it meant you'd put a fringe shirt on."

Gunnar shook his head. "Not for a headlining arena tour."

Layla watched the way they leaned in closer to smile. It was like they had a private language of expressions, spoken just by each other. Beside her, Will was quiet again, but still grinning, probably at the image of Gunnar in rhinestones and fringe.

She reached over, took her boyfriend's hand. Then she slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans, smiling up at him. She was trying to get that same expression to come back, but he just stared at the ground, stiff and formal at her side.

"Bet you didn't wear the hat as good as Will," Layla said.

Gunnar and Zoey looked over at her. Will looked up, but didn't exactly smile at her comment.

"I don't think there are too many people who can," Gunnar said slowly. "Think you kind of need a really big head."

He grinned at Will, reaching for his Stetson. Will swatted his hand away, smiling through his teeth. It didn't look like he found it very funny.

Zoey cleared her throat. "Who wants to get some frozen yogurt?"

Gunnar groaned. "Ugh, none of that trendy bullshit. Whatever happened to good ol' TCBY?" He rolled his eyes. "Nobody's got integrity anymore."

Zoey laughed, but it felt forced. Layla looked down at the ground. Beside her, Will didn't say anything. His hand was limp in her own, and they were all silent as they headed toward the house.

She had a feeling like she'd ruined something without trying. Like she was just somebody's dumb tagalong sister who had just crashed Big Sis's date with the cool kids.

Something her mother used to say to her suddenly came rushing back. Words she hadn't heard since she was still doing the pageant circuit:

"_Don't open your mouth until you have the right words." _

Her mom always said that. And pageants always need the right words.

For some reason, Layla thought about her run-in today with Rayna James and her younger daughter. The way she took her child's hand, the way they had a mother-daughter day just to spend time together. A superstar who took time out of her busy day to just be with her little girl, to show her how much she loved her.

Her mom always taught her to never trust another woman. Ugly or pretty, they're untrustworthy all the same. Never trust any woman, especially if you're pretty.

"And you're very pretty," her mother said, matter-of-factly. "So don't change."

Layla wondered if sometimes Rayna ever looked at her daughters and reminded them to be more grateful for everything she'd ever given them. That she didn't _have_ to give up the career she should have had, just to be their mother. That they should be grateful, be thankful they have so much.

How did Rayna learn to love her kids so well? Everybody knew the story – about Rayna James' famous, beautiful mother died tragically in a horrible car crash, when her daughters were still young. If Rayna never had a mom to show her how to be one, then how did she know what to do?

But Rayna James looked like she knew exactly how to raise her child. How to love and cherish her, and make her the most important thing in her life.

The way that Rayna looked at Daphne…it reminded Layla of the way that Gunnar looked at Zoey. Like they were looking into the sun, or staring into stars. Like they were the most special view they could ever see.

Layla couldn't claim to have seen that, from her own mother. But she knew the things NOT to do, when it came to showing your child you loved them; that they were more than just your expectations and disappointments, the sum of all their failures, pieces of a broken mess.

Surely that could translate into the same thing. Right?

**IV.**

It wasn't even ten yet, but they were about to fall asleep, and Layla didn't realize how exhausted she was until she slipped off her clothes, tossing them on Will's futon.

"That was nice of Gunnar and Zoey," she said. She peeled back the comforter, climbing between the sheets. One thing about Will – he always made his bed. It was, like, a crazy OCD thing with him. "To take us out like that."

From the bathroom, Will shrugged, toothbrush still in his mouth, then grunted something she took to be a response. Toothpaste foamed on his lips, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand before it could dribble down the front of his chest.

Layla fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt, over the flat curve of her stomach.

"Sorry we couldn't stay out longer," she said. "Like, go to a bar or something."

She strained to hear over the sound of Will's sink running.

"S'fine," she heard him say. "We got a long day tomorrow, so."

He ran his hands through his hair and went to his dresser, rummaging through a drawer and pulling out a sweatshirt.

"Could have been fun, though," Layla said. She smoothed the sheets over her bare legs, then tucked her knees to her chest. "Sucks sometimes, you know? To be nineteen. Especially because we can't really do anything."

Will pulled the sweatshirt on over his head – VANDERBILT it said across the front – and sighed.

"Won't last forever," he told her, his back still turned. He started digging through his drawer again. "Besides, you shouldn't be drinking now, anyway."

Her head snapped up.

"_What?"_ she demanded, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Just sayin'," Will said. He pulled something out of his drawer. "After everything Jeff said this mornin', and the big Juliette shake-up, last thing Edgehill needs is another scandal. Like underage drinking."

"Oh." She settled back under the covers, propped up against the pillows. "Right. Of course. Have to set a good example."

He nodded. "Or just not do anything that'll make Jeff's head explode."

Layla stared at the covers, fingers tracing the plaid pattern.

"Probably wouldn't take much," she murmured.

Layla thought she had said that comment quietly enough that only she would hear it, but apparently she hadn't, because Will gave her a tight, fleeting smile over his shoulder.

"No," he agreed. "It would not."

She closed her eyes, leaned against the headboard. She was wrapped in the sheets of Will's bed, but was still shivering, for some reason. So she concentrated on Will's heavy footsteps on the cold floor, getting closer as he came towards the bed. She felt the sheets peel back on his side of the mattress, the sinking weight of his body next to hers, and felt him push something towards her.

She blinked. "What's this?"

She looked at what was in his hands, uncertain, like he might yank it back from her. It was a navy hooded sweatshirt, one that said "Nashville Predators" on the front.

She never heard him mention liking hockey before.

"Humor me," Will was saying. "It's a cold night. The heater in this place sucks."

_Then maybe you should get under the covers and warm me up._

The response was right there on her tongue. Ready to give to Will, along with a sly narrow of her eyes and a bat of her long lashes. She had the routine down pat.

But instead she just fiddled with the toggles on the sweatshirt and stared at the bundle of fabric without blinking. She was afraid if she took her eyes off of it, she'd do something unforgivable. Like cry.

"Thanks," she murmured.

Layla took the sweatshirt and pulled it over her body, letting the worn, scratchy flannel swallow her whole. The sleeves were way too long for her, and her hands stuck inside like stumps. It smelled like a gym locker, but also like Will, like she'd crawled up inside his skin. As if his bones were wrapped around her body like armor to protect her; it was like she could crawl into him and stay safe from whatever was to come.

Again, she was surprised by his kindness. Like the roses in Minneapolis, and the space in his home.

It was like when Will told her he was sorry when Juliette flipped their sets. Like he actually meant it. Was genuinely sorry she got the shitty end of the stick; like for once, somebody was sad that her life was screwed, and they were sorry that she'd been hurt. So he gave her roses and a sincere apology, and they almost had a song.

And who knows, maybe they made it that night. A Minneapolis baby, made from roses and sincerity.

Before Juliette had fucked everything up.

The mattress dropped when he sat on the bed, and to her surprise he lay down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. She held completely still, very aware of the exact weight of him against her.

They'd never done this before. Will was never affectionate with her like this, not without reason. They'd never had a touch that didn't lead to something more.

She didn't realize until her chest started to hurt that she'd been holding her breath.

Maybe now, she would know what it felt like when Gunnar slipped his arm around Zoey's waist while she stood the kitchen counter, making her morning coffee as he kissed her neck over and over. Or how it felt when Gunnar held Zoey's hand, walking down the streets of Music Row. Or what it felt like when their feet were interlocked like secrets when they were lying on the couch together, or how their fingers touched each other like they knew spaces of their bodies only each other had memorized.

Layla stared at the ceiling, at the glowing trail of lights strung over them, bobbing and blinking like little stars. A constellation right over the two of them, hanging in the darkness.

She could tell him.

She turned over.

"Will?"

She waited for a response, received none. He was asleep.

She watched him.

The baby could have his build, his height. His cheekbones; his beautiful, songworthy eyes.

But what if it had her emptiness? The space inside herself that she knew had always been missing? The blankness she saw whenever she stared at a blank piece of paper in her writing journal?

A poem she read in high school told her that they self-destructed in a burst of light in the endlessness of space, but still, they came to life. A whole galaxy, defying explanation.

But poetry lied, and she knew the real reason stars existed. The whys and hows and all the science that went with it. She loved it all, learning everything so that nothing would ever surprise her and she would never be overwhelmed by what was going on around her.

Because the more she understood, the more she'd always have the upper hand.

She needed a space in her head that wasn't occupied by the voices of Jeff and Juliette, of her mother. Of _American Hitmaker_ host Cesar Antonio telling her she'd lost, she was second, she was nobody's star, she'd become nothing. Just like that, everything she'd tried so hard to be was gone, and she was nobody's anything.

Her worst fucking nightmare.

She pressed her ear to Will's chest, determined to hear his heartbeat – that, and nothing else. She could close her eyes and hear it pulsing under his skin, steady and alive, and she breathed in time to the way it thudded in her ear. She heard it beat through her own body, imagined the darkness inside herself. For once, she wasn't so completely empty inside.

She breathed in the smell of his body, skin and sweat and snow. Like she could breathe him right down to the marrow inside the bones, and everything else running inside him.

Some of that was inside _her_, now, too.

A piece of that same heartbeat she was so determined to hear. It was taking up the empty space inside her own body, growing and filling it with something so alive it scared her to think about it too long.

She touched her belly and looked over at Will. A ferocious need to protect came over her, so much her head spun, and she rolled against Will, his arm still tucked around her in sleep.

Maybe what was inside of her could sense his closeness, his warmth; tucked between the two people who gave it life. Maybe it could sense love, but she figured that was bullshit, like the poetry about the stars.

Then again. Layla remembered _being_ a star, so maybe everything wasn't bullshit.


	3. Tell Me

**Author's Note: I don't own Nashville. If I did, Gunnar would have a much better hairstyle and Teddy wouldn't take up storylines. **

**I.**

"He is so hot."

"I know, right?"

"He is _gorgeous_."

"What is he doing with that girl? He's, like, so much older than her. She's such a bitch, too."

Layla's face burned. She ducked back into the empty fitting room, out of sight from the salesgirls, and for some reason fought back the urge to cry.

God, when had she let bitches like that say shit that bothered her so much? Those girls were nothing. She used to OWN girls like that, back in high school. Nobody would have ever dared say ANYTHING like that about Layla Grant once upon a time, because they all knew better. And now these jealous minimum-wage losers had that kind of nerve? Who were they to her? Nothing.

But still, she found herself wiping stray tears away from the corners of her eyelids. This was happening a lot more lately, the whole "spontaneous crying" thing. She hated it, like she hated that her jeans suddenly didn't zip right and her feet were swollen a size larger so she couldn't fit into any of her shoes, and that her face suddenly looked fat as a chipmunk's. Plus, she'd started developing this weird craving for bacon, and swore she smelled it even when it wasn't cooking anywhere near her.

Layla gripped the dress in her hands, staring back at the salesgirls. Their cheap perfume, the way their asses were all too fat for the clothes they were wearing, and the tacky way they slicked back their hair. Little bitches.

The funniest part was, they could do a lot worse than this department store gig, and not a whole lot better. That made her smile.

She'd spent the weekend in Dallas, doing back-to-back shows on Friday and Saturday night with Will and Luke. When she wasn't focused on getting through soundcheck and her set list, Jeff's threat in the back of her mind, she tried not to think about the days ticking by. Tried not to count the number of days on the calendar that passed where she didn't mark down a date with a black dot, the same one she'd made on every calendar of every month since she was thirteen.

Still, she couldn't help but notice: almost thirty-three days since the last time she'd needed to make a mark.

The morning of the flight to Texas, she'd woken up feeling sick to her stomach, and when Will ducked into the bathroom for a quick shower, she'd hurried downstairs to be sick in the bathroom by the kitchen. She turned on the sink to hide the noise, but Gunnar and Zoey were still asleep on the other end of the house and Will was still upstairs. Nobody had noticed Layla Grant, budding superstar and darling of Nashville, on her knees on the freezing tile of her boyfriend's spare bathroom, puking her guts out at four in the morning.

Which was a relief, in a way. But also the loneliest feeling she'd ever had, picking herself off the ground.

When she'd finally made herself stand up and hobble to the mirror to rinse her mouth out and splash cold water on her face, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection and froze, just staring at herself. At least, Layla thought it was herself – it was hard to tell. The girl in the mirror had bloodshot eyes with black bags underneath, matted unwashed hair, skin completely drained of color.

Who was that girl? She'd actually leaned forward toward the mirror, forehead touching the glass, so close to the surface that the reflection was blurred. Was she still Layla Grant?

And even if that were true, then which version of Layla was she? Opening act on the biggest tour in country music? Country music's new darling? Fresh face of Nashville? One half of Hashtag Layla-and-Will? Harvard acceptance letter, valedictorian of Trinity Academy class of 2011? Adored _American Hitmaker _contestant, winner of Miss Teen Connecticut three years in a row?

Were any of those Layla Grants the one staring back at her now?

She'd peeled her face away from the glass, seeing the greasy stain her skin had left on the mirror. Stared at that girl in the reflection, her bleak face and lifeless eyes. Reached one hand up, touched her damp cheek.

The girl in the mirror did the same.

She'd stood that way for a while. Water still running from the faucet, legs shaking as she leaned against the sink for support, hand on her colorless skin as she stared at that unblinking girl in the mirror, familiar and not all at once.

She almost told him, in Dallas. He came to her dressing room, telling her that they were running their duet right before they opened the arena gates.

"Will?"

He'd turned back to her, one hand on the doorknob. Always, he seemed to be leaving these days. She thought she saw more of his back turning away from her than any other view of him. Even in bed, he turned away from her.

She had thought of that as she looked at his reflection in the dressing room mirror. She'd had one hand on her stomach without realizing it, staring at her still-slender reflection dressed for the stage, as Will kept his hand on the door and looked like he was already waiting to leave her here alone.

She'd turned around to face him, and made herself smile.

"Zip me up?"

That night during her set, she'd been halfway through her new single when suddenly all she could think about was that girl. The one made of light, spinning in that golden room filled with mirrors, the floor cold under her bare feet as she twirled, twirled, twirled.

That had been Saturday night. It was Tuesday now, another early morning, and they were at an uptown boutique with a slew of Edgehill personnel who had been hired to pick out clothes for her and Will to wear to the ACMs. She and Will had just been given word that they were presenting an award that night – Vocal Duo of the Year – and they'd also be performing, separately.

She'd tried on one of the dresses already, and hated it. It was bright pink, and when she put it on all she could think about was how she looked like a walking bottle of Pepto-Bismol. It had a low neckline that sparkled with a jeweled trim, along with a narrow waist, and the first thing she thought when she slipped it over her body – besides how freaking hideous it looked – was that by the time she was ready to wear this dress in front of national TV cameras and thousands of people, she wouldn't be able to fit into it anymore.

Then she promptly banished that thought from her mind, and unzipped the dress.

"I don't like it," she said. It was directed to the same salesgirl who had made the initial comment about Will.

The girl puckered her face. Which was too bad; she already looked like a dogface, even without the sour expression. "It's a great color."

"It's too bright. I look like a highlighter."

The girl scowled. "Maybe it's just bad lighting."

Layla narrowed her eyes. "No, the problem is that it sucks. Which shouldn't happen, if you're doing your fucking job."

The girl's face turned the color of that stupid dress. Then she snatched it out of Layla's hands, examining it with that same puckered look on her face.

"You're right," she said slowly. "The color doesn't really work. Your skin tone completely clashes with it."

Layla clenched her jaw. The girl turned away before either of them could say anything, but not before Layla could see her smirking.

Not for the first time today, she found herself thinking about something her mother had told her, back when she started doing pageants at the junior level, along with girls who had been doing them since they were in the infants division.

Sometimes, you had to let other girls have the last word. It made you look classy, above the petty jealousies and insecurities and emotional outbursts. You had to be above it all.

Layla thought about that, as she watched that salesgirl walk away. And also, about stomping in that salesgirl's face in with the heels she'd worn to the fitting. Now _that_ was an infinitely more satisfying option.

She'd been doing that a lot, lately. Thinking about her mother's words. Layla hadn't seen or spoken to her mother in weeks, but lately it was like she was right against her ear, speaking into it like she had every day of Layla's life before she'd moved to Nashville.

A salesgirl – a new one – came by carrying another dress, this time orange. Layla stared at it, trying not to groan. What was it, with all these horrible colors? Was it some conspiracy to make her look as gross as possible in front of the world?

"No," she said. "It looks awful. They all look awful."

Layla turned away from them, heading towards the girl's bathroom. She barely made it to the stall before her stomach turned over, and she puked before she could try and stop herself. She hadn't eaten much since the day before, since it seemed like everything she tried to eat just came up ten minutes later, so there wasn't much to bring up.

She waited until she could stand on her own again, breathing through her mouth, and made sure there was nobody else around when she stumbled out of the stall, making her way towards the sink. She splashed some water on her face, and tried to ignore the face in the mirror, the same one she'd seen in the mirror of Will and Gunnar's extra bathroom. That girl wasn't someone who was shopping for dresses to wear to the ACMs, she was…someone else entirely, and Layla had no idea who she was.

She came out of the bathroom when she felt like she could walk without shaking. Thankfully, the salesgirls were gone, and so were the heinous dresses.

Good. If she tried on one more of them, she'd puke all over every one of them, just to spite those bitches. And Jeff Fordham while she was at it.

And probably Juliette too, for putting her in this position in the first place. If it weren't for that stupid Opry stunt, Layla wouldn't have an entire label on her shoulders.

Just thinking about Juliette made her hands curl into fists. Bitch. Making moves on other people's husbands, their boyfriends, then going ahead and blowing everything up without ever taking any responsibility for anything.

At least her career was in crash-and-burn. The thought helped, but not nearly enough. Which was odd, because just a few weeks ago the current Juliette situation would have put Layla over the moon.

She leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Looked at the rows and rows and rows of dresses, all organized by color, a shimmering rainbow snaking its way across the hardwood floor.

Layla was used to this kind of thing. When she'd been doing the pageant circuit full time, she and her mother would go up to New York City to find dresses, and she'd spent most of her weekends in bridal shops and designer boutiques, trying on gowns. Most girls didn't get to put on dresses this fancy until the night of their high school prom, but Layla had been doing it since she was six.

And she hadn't even gone to prom, anyway. Her junior year she'd been in the Miss Teen Connecticut pageant, and her senior year she'd had to go to a student leadership conference down in Boston, as per her parents' orders. The woman running it had been a Harvard graduate; it was, as her mother had said, too good of a connection to pass up. Layla HAD to be there, if she expected to be taken seriously, get connections, start networking and build her resume.

But in the end, she'd ended up doing the show and deferring Harvard. So really, the whole leadership conference hadn't mattered as much as it seemed like it would have, in the long run.

It was weird, the things that seemed so important. And then, when you looked back some time later, realized how pointless it all was. It's not like prom had really mattered to Layla in the long run, but here she was, out of high school and suddenly wishing she'd just been able to put on the pretty dress and go eat bad chicken with people she never really liked. There were tears prickling in her eyes. She sniffled them down, wiping her eyes angrily. Jesus, what was WRONG with her lately?

"Miss Grant?"

One salesgirl – one Layla hadn't noticed before, though probably because she was about four feet tall – stepped closer to her, holding a black garment bag.

"Miss Grant?" she asked again. Her voice sounded timid, like her smile. "I thought you might want to see this. I think it would look great on you."

Layla narrowed her eyes at the bag.

"If it's another orange peel, I swear I'm gonna kill someone," she muttered, snatching the dress from her.

"It's not," the girl said.

Layla watched the girl, the way she smiled, so open and 'd made girls like this CRY in high school. It had made her happy, to see that.

Like she'd ever let somebody like _this_ help her.

Layla unzipped the bag.

It wasn't pink, or orange, or any bright color. It was dark, silver, and shimmered as she pulled the zipper all the way down and pushed the plastic cover aside, revealing the entire dress.

The salesgirl smiled.

"I thought –" she said, as Layla stared, gaping, "that this was more…appropriate. You know, for the ACMs." She grinned. "You're one of country's new leading ladies, after all. Might want to start looking like it."

It _was_ perfect, but the girl seemed too eager for her to say it. Layla made herself look down at her coolly, holding the dress slightly away from her.

"Let me try it on, first."

**II.**

Right now: she was a sky heavy with clouds; a newly-polished sword gleaming on a battlefield, ready to shed blood. A knife in the dark, a bullet straight through the heart. A precious, deadly thing.

The silver gown rippled like a stream of bullets, or a thundercloud. She turned in the mirror, hands resting on her hips, and watched the darkness slide down her body.

She could be a treasure.

The salesgirl who had given her the dress eyed her, with her hands on her hips.

"Wow," was all she said, and a huge grin slid across her face.

Layla just stared at her reflection. The three-way mirror projected her gleaming shape all around her, and she held up the train of her dress, lifting her chin as she took a deep breath.

She spun around. Once, twice, three times. The dress gleamed in the mirror, her reflection outlined in light. She was spinning, a blur, around and around and around.

Will, of course, chose that moment to walk out of his own dressing room, fiddling with the cuff of his black shirt and wearing jeans so tight she was surprised they actually weren't painted on. He didn't look at her as he walked right by, heading for the mirror and tugging at his sleeve.

She stared. Let the train of the dress drop out of her hand, and just watched him go, the way he didn't say a word to her or didn't even act like he saw her.

He didn't even notice her. His _girlfriend_, standing right there, in a dress that made her look like an assassin princess made of steel and storm.

**III.**

They were leaving; Layla had been trying to give Will the cold shoulder since he ignored her in that dress, but he seemed oblivious to it, more concerned with whoever he was texting to notice her.

Maybe she should just strip naked and jump him, right here in the elevator. Though if memory served her, taking her clothes off didn't always seem to get his attention.

She brushed past him on the way out the door, taking care to actually bump him, but he didn't seem to notice. She gritted her teeth, trying not to scream; though she wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to say.

"Oh, hey y'all!"

Scarlett O'Connor was rushing towards the two of them, wearing one of those stupid ensembles she seemed to perpetually dress in. This time, she wore what looked like a shabby men's duster, long and plaid and dark green, over a long red dress with little yellow flowers, and a pair of scuffed cowboy boots.

Layla stared. Jesus, what WAS it with this girl? Could she ever just wear clothes that matched, or at least didn't make her look like a hobo? Was that really too much to ask?

"Hey!" Scarlett practically squealed. "How are y'all doin'?"

Will smiled; of course, he managed to look away from his precious phone to look at _freaking_ Scarlett, but not his own girlfriend.

"Hey, girl," he said, and gave her a hug. Layla watched, slipping her hands into her back pockets. Though clawing out Scarlett's eyes felt like it would be way more satisfying.

Suddenly the girl's arms were around her, too; a nightmare of uncombed hair and pixie dust.

"What're y'all doin' here?" Scarlett asked. Her smile was so wide Layla thought it might split her face in half.

Will grimaced. "They had us sent over here to get all gussied up for the ACMs. Edgehill had a bunch of stylists in there, to dress us up like Barbie dolls." He rolled his eyes. "It sucked."

Except for that dress.

"Not completely," Layla countered. "I think I found a really amazing outfit. Remember it, Will?"

But he wasn't listening to her.

"Oh, that's fun," Scarlett said. "I gotta pick out a dress for Rayna's video shoot."

Consolation prize for getting kicked off the Luke tour, Layla thought. It was bitter and mean, but made her feel a little less crappy. Sort of.

"That sounds fun," said Will.

Scarlett bobbed her head. The way she moved reminded Layla of a jack-in-the-box. The manic way their heads bounced on springs, and the weirdly vacant, yet someone eerily painted-on smiles. Scarlett was giving them a similar expression right now.

Will gave Layla a sideways glance.

"Hey, listen Scarlett," he said. "I'm…we're really sorry."

He kept his eyes on at Layla, though whether he was imploring her to agree with him or just not say what she was really thinking, it was hard to say. Probably both.

"We're sorry about the whole Luke Wheeler thing," Will said. "It wasn't our choice. Trust me, I never wanted you to get screwed in this."

Scarlett stared at them, her head tilted to one side. Layla was reminded of a cocker spaniel. With really bad hair products.

"Oh, that." She shook her head, unconcerned. "Not important. Not like I don't got a million other things goin' on, right?"

Before Will could respond, Scarlett kept going.

"I mean, between recordin' with Liam, writin' all these new songs, makin' all these appearances for Highway 65, I been runnin' in circles for days now." She beamed at the two of them. "I never have a moment to myself!"

Will was watching her, slightly open-mouthed.

"Ummm…" he said. "That – sounds busy."

Scarlett nodded, so fast and hard Layla was surprised her head didn't just snap off right there and roll off into the parking lot. And she'd probably still be talking, even if it did.

"It is!" she bubbled. "It's really busy, really, really busy!"

Will was still staring.

"Well," he said, after the world's longest pause, "we better get goin'." He looked over at Layla. "We have to be in a plane to Florida in, like, six hours."

Scarlett's eyes widened, if such a thing was even possible.

"Oooh, Florida!" she said. "I was there. Very sticky. Hot." She gestured vaguely in the air. "Lots of palm trees. Real pretty. 'Cept they booed me there."

Will's eyebrows shot up. "They did what, now?"

Scarlett blinked.

"Long story," she muttered, with a wave of her hands. "Doesn't matter."

Layla stared at her. Will did the same.

Scarlett blinked again.

"Well," she said, "I gotta go try on, like, ninety dresses before they find one that makes me look like somebody else." She laughed, a manic, offkey sound.

"Well," Layla said, before Will could make his mouth remember how to work again, "good luck with that."

He scowled at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Thanks," Scarlett gave them another wide smile. "Bye!"

And just like that, she was gone, in a dash of badly split ends and fairy dust.

Layla and Will stood there, watching her disappear into the store. Even after the rows of dresses had swallowed her up, they still stayed right where they were, like they were rooted in the spot.

"Okay," Will said, a solid minute after she'd flitted away. "Was it just me, or was that really fuckin' weird?"

**IV.**

She didn't have anything else to do for the day, but she didn't feel like going back to the studio or going back to the house, even though she really had nowhere else to go.

It felt weird, being at the house without Will. Not that Gunnar wasn't okay, but things were always awkward between just them without Will as a conversation buffer, and she didn't really know Zoey, either. And when she was alone in the house with the both of them it felt even weirder. It was like she was the annoying little sister no one really wanted around.

She couldn't exactly blame them, since it seemed like the two of them rarely got "couple time" anymore with Gunnar being so busy, but still. Sometimes she watched them, and couldn't help herself.

The last time Layla had seen Zoey, the other girl had been wearing a jacket that was so long on her arms Layla thought it had to belong to Gunnar. Had he given it to her? Did he leave it at her apartment, in her car? Or did she take it herself, on impulse, just because it felt nice to have something of his to wrap herself in?

Layla doubted it; Zoey didn't seem like the type to steal her boyfriend's clothes and do pathetic stuff like hide it at the bottom of her drawer, smell it whenever she got lonely or horny or felt like he wasn't paying enough attention to her. Zoey wasn't that pathetic, which meant that Gunnar had probably given it to her.

Sometimes, she watched Will get dressed and wondered what wearing one of his shirts would feel like. His shoulders were so broad and his body so tall, it probably would have swallowed her in fabric, like arms being wrapped around her. Like that sweatshirt he'd let her borrow, which she still slept in on the cold nights.

Layla used the spare key Will had given her and let herself in through the kitchen. She threw her bag down on the countertop and headed straight for upstairs, and walked right in on Gunnar and Zoey lying on the couch. Zoey was straddling his waist, shirtless, and Gunnar's hands ran up the sides of her bare skin as they lay there, completely absorbed in each other.

Layla stared, frozen in place. She couldn't make herself look away.

At least, until they both looked up, startled, when they noticed her standing there, staring with her mouth open.

"Shit," Layla said, backing out of the room. She threw her hands over her face, and nearly tripped over her own feet in an effort to hurry out of the way. "Oh, shit. Shit, sorry! I'm sorry! I'll, uh, I'll go!"

She tried to hurry out the door, but Gunnar was calling to her.

"It's…wait, it's okay!"

There were sounds of the two of them ungluing themselves from each other, and something being zipped back up. She tried not to think about what exactly that was, or what it meant.

"I'm sorry!" she repeated, hands over her face, like she could still see the two of them tangled, half-dressed on the couch cushions. She could still see the way Gunnar's hands trailed up Zoey's naked back, the spidery path of his fingers as they molded to the pattern of her spine. The way he touched her, it seemed like those fingers knew her entire body by heart.

She had seen Gunnar and Zoey kiss before, and they'd seen her and Will kiss a hundred times. But that was different. That felt too private to even be thinking about other people doing, let alone seeing.

"It's okay," Gunnar was saying. "We're all, uh, decent here."

She opened her eyes, and both of them were fully dressed this time. But still, she couldn't look directly at them, so she focused on the edge of the coffee table instead.

"Sorry," she said, for the millionth time. Her eyes felt teary again, for some reason, but she blinked them back. No way was she going to start crying now.

"It's all right," Gunnar said. "We just thought you were in the studio."

"No," Layla said. She felt like she was still intruding, even though now Gunnar and Zoey were both sitting on the couch like nothing had happened. "Will's recording all day. I just…"

She trailed off, not wanting to say that the only reason she'd ended up here and walking in on the two of them was because she had nowhere else to go.

Even in this house, where she was supposed to be living, she wasn't really welcome. Not without Will.

Zoey was staring at her hands in her lap and Gunnar was suddenly absorbed in staring at the wall, so Layla cleared her throat.

"So…did you guys get dinner yet?"

"Uhh, well," Gunnar and Zoey peered at each other. "We were gonna go in a little while, get something to eat."

"Oh, cool! Where?"

Gunnar and Zoey exchanged another glance, and it took Layla a beat to realize she missed something.

"We were kinda thinking…" Gunnar started, and Layla stood there squirming as she filled in the blanks:

_We were thinking of going alone, and that doesn't include bringing Taylor Swift Junior along for the ride._

Layla already started backing out of the room again.

"You know what," she said, face burning. "Forget it. I saw a sandwich place, I'll just…"

"That place sucks," Zoey said matter-of-factly. She stood up, fixing the hem of her shirt, and looked at Layla as if the other girl hadn't just seen her half-naked and on top of her boyfriend. "Do you like onion straws?"

Gunnar stared at her. Layla did, too.

"Excuse me?" she managed.

Zoey smiled, and Layla was surprised at how it instantly made her feel like she knew the other girl. Like they'd been best friends for years, and didn't just know each other from brief, awkward run-ins facilitated by their boyfriends living in the same house. Or…other types of awkward run-ins.

"Do you," Zoey repeated, "like onion straws?"

**V.**

The Tip-Top Diner, or the Tip as Zoey called it, was in a weird location – attached to the tail end of a notoriously sketchy-looking motel called the Commodore Inn, it felt more like it some cheap continental breakfast bar than a local hotspot for Vanderbilt students and high school kids on their lunch break. But inside it had wood-paneled walls and a dome ceiling, and the floor was tiled with a blue-and-gold pattern. In the center of the room was a giant moon and sun painted on the floor, nestled into each other like puzzle pieces.

Layla followed Zoey and Gunnar inside and to a booth in the corner, where a waitress with purple streaks in her handed them sticky menus.

"I've never heard of this place," Gunnar said, sliding into the seat next to Zoey.

"Really?" Zoey asked.

Gunnar shook his head. "Although it looks like they have every flavor of syrup that you can possibly want, so it's got that going for it." He pointed at the menu. "Hey, look, pecan."

Zoey grinned at Layla. "My friend showed me this place when I first moved to Nashville. I swear, I gained, like, ten pounds just the first week. I tell you, it's because of the onion straws."

Layla found herself smiling back.

"What else is good here?" she asked.

"Pretty much everything," Zoey replied. "But the onion straws are the biggest thing."

"Weird that Scarlett never took me here," Gunnar said.

Layla's eyebrows shot up at the both of them.

"Scarlett?" she asked. "Like, Scarlett O'Connor?"

They both looked over at her.

"Yeah," Gunnar said. "What, you didn't know?"

"Know what?" she could tell her voice was rising. How small _was_ this freaking town?

Zoey and Gunnar did that look-exchanging thing they were both so good at.

"Did Will mention that she used to live here?" Gunnar said.

Layla blinked.

"Here, like," she said, "in the house?"

Gunnar nodded. "Yeah. We were writing partners. Before she got signed with Rayna James, that is. We actually…"

Zoey was suddenly absorbed in stirring some sugar into her coffee. Layla looked between the two of them, but neither of them would make eye contact with her.

"We actually," Gunnar said, scratching behind his ears. "we used to…date."

Layla looked back over at Zoey, but she was still focused on her coffee mug.

"Did Will really never mention that?" Gunnar asked.

Layla felt her face heat up. So what, they had to point out that she knew nothing about anything? That they knew Will better than she did?

"Well, maybe he might've mentioned it," she said slowly, "like, once or twice. But I probably forgot."

"Seems weird that he wouldn't," Gunnar said.

"Well," Layla said, her voice with more of an edge than she realized, "that's Will. A big weirdo."

Zoey stirred her coffee.

Gunnar's fingers drummed the tabletop.

"Well," he said, then trailed off. "Bathroom."

He practically ran to the men's room, leaving the two of them in the booth alone.

For a moment, she and Zoey just sat there, the silence between them punctured by noisy chatter of other customers and the clang of dishes from the kitchen. Their waitress came back, handing them their onion straws, and while they looked and smelled heavenly they also came with ranch dressing on the side, and as soon as Layla took one whiff of it her stomach immediately flipped over. She pushed the food away from her, knowing if she took a bite she'd probably puke all over the table, and focused on squeezing some lemon into her glass of water instead. She kept her hands on the cold sides of the glass, letting the condensation drip between her fingers.

Zoey watched her.

"You're not hungry?" she asked.

Layla tried not to look at her.

"Think I'll just wait," she said. "You know, for them to, uh, cool down."

Zoey nodded, apparently letting that lame answer slide. She dunked her own onion straws in the ranch dressing, and Layla tried very hard not to gag at the smell.

Instead, she watched Zoey's hands, as they poked at her food. They weren't guitarist hands – no calluses or sore spots, no blunted nails or cuts on the tops of her fingertips from where the strings tore away stripes of skin. She wondered what Zoey was doing here in Nashville. If she'd moved here to be a musician, or what her story was.

"Sorry about that," Layla said suddenly.

Zoey looked up at her.

"It's okay," she murmured.

"I didn't –" Layla started, then stopped. She didn't know why SHE was apologizing – someone should have told her about this earlier, right? If she was living with these people and knew all of them, it felt weird to be left out of this kind of history.

Why wouldn't Will have told her? She was a part of his life, part of his circle of friends. At the very least, he could have spared her from looking like SUCH an asshole in front of Gunnar and Zoey. As if Layla hadn't already embarrassed herself enough in front of them as it was.

But Zoey didn't look humiliated, or even angry. She just smiled at Layla, looking tired.

"It's okay," she said, her voice gentle. "It's…"

She stopped, and then looked away, letting out a small laugh. Layla found herself laughing, too, and when Zoey caught her eye the two of them grinned at each other.

"It's all really insane," Zoey confessed, still laughing. "With everything that happened between us. Me and Gunnar and…Scarlett."

She ran her fingers through her curly hair. "I keep thinking to myself, when did my life suddenly become this…soap opera?" She let out a sigh. "I swear, sometimes it's hard to even recognize my life. I stare at myself in the mirror and just wonder, how did I get here?"

Layla's hands twitched in her lap.

"I know the feeling," she said.

Zoey shrugged.

"Still," she said. "I'm sorry about…about that. It's still so awkward for everybody."

Layla stirred her water, poking at the ice cubes with her straw.

"Guess that's why Will didn't tell me," she said.

She stopped stirring her drink. Why had she said that?

Zoey was watching her.

"Probably," the other girl said slowly.

Layla looked around the diner. The overwhelming number of people there were wearing some type of Vanderbilt clothes, either sweatshirts or sweatpants or jackets, some of the guys in winter caps.

For a moment, Layla glanced around at the sea of black and gold, and wondered what she'd missed out on by not going to Harvard. She'd been there with her mother for the campus tour back when she was an applicant, and seen a few hippie places like this surrounding the campus. Maybe she'd be at one of them, right now.

It was a weird feeling – like having a flashback of a life you'd never led. Layla stared at the tabletop and saw herself, in this exact moment in time, except living a completely different life. She was wearing a Harvard jacket and pulling an all-nighter, and she was with some of classmates from her Spanish-American lit class. They were all mainlining caffeine, cramming for midterms, comparing notes and typing away on their laptops.

She picked up her fork, twirling it in her fingers. Now look at her.

She was one of Nashville's biggest up-and-coming stars, and part of one of country music's fastest rising power couples. She was opening for one of the biggest tours in the entire music industry. She had an entire playlist waiting for her on her laptop, full of demos for her to go through and pick tracks for her debut album. She'd just picked out a dress to wear to one of the most prestigious awards ceremonies in country music, where she'd not only be presenting but performing in front of thousands, if not millions of people, and her last single had gone to number one on iTunes less than twelve hours after its release.

She stared down at her hands in her lap. They were crossed over her stomach, and she held them there for a while, palms pressed against her shirt. For a moment, she remembered the other morning, staring at that reflection in the mirror and wondering who that person was, the ghost-girl figure with the haunted eyes staring right back at her through the glass.

It was just like Zoey said. One of those moments where you looked up and suddenly wondered how you'd gotten there, a point when you no longer recognized your life.

Again, that image of the spinning girl came back to Layla, that little girl in the golden room. Moving faster and faster, unstoppable; only this time, she was spiraling out of control.

Zoey's mouth was moving, and it took Layla a moment to realize that she was trying to say something to her.

"What was that?" she asked.

Zoey raised her eyebrows.

"You okay?" she asked. "You kinda spaced out for a second."

"Oh." Layla made herself laugh, then shook her head. "Yeah, sorry. Really tired, I guess."

Zoey was still watching her. Her expression might have been something like worry, but Layla didn't know why. She still didn't like it, though, so she ran her hands through her hair and made herself smile, that pageant-winning grin that always dazzled people. Made them feel like she had everything so put together.

It had gotten her this far, hadn't it?

"So," she asked. "How long have you and Gunnar been dating?"

Zoey shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's…kind of confusing. I think we've officially been going out something like two months? But we were sort of dancing around the idea for a lot longer. We just – we had a hard time making it solid."

Layla stirred some more lemon into her water.

"That part was mostly me," Zoey added. "The dancing-around-it part."

"Because of the Scarlett thing?" Layla couldn't help asking.

Zoey nodded.

"The whole thing seems a lot messier now," she said. "Trying to explain it to an outsider."

Layla's stomach sank at the word "outsider". Like she was an interruption, a hiccup. Or a nuisance. She tried not to let it show on her face.

"What about you and Will?" Zoey asked. "How long have you guys been at it?"

Layla shrugged. "I don't know. About four months? Give or take? It's a little –"

"Complicated," Zoey filled in, and smiled. "Yeah. Seems like."

She cocked her head at Zoey. "Really? In what way?"

"Like…" Zoey said. "I don't know. Will just seemed so – not the girlfriend type."

Layla narrowed her eyes.

"Maybe he just never met the right girl before," Layla replied. It came out sharper than she meant it to.

Zoey took a breath, like she meant to say something, but then let the words die on her lips.

"Maybe," was all she said. But she didn't sound too convinced.

Layla's face was heating up. She stared down at the table, at the sticky, greasy surface. The smell of Zoey's ranch dressing was all of a sudden impossibly strong, and made her feel sick to her stomach.

Gunnar slid into the booth beside Zoey. He reached over and took a hunk of onion straws off her plate.

"So," he said. "Apparently I didn't miss anything."

She and Zoey gaped at him.

He stared back.

"The food," he said. "It didn't come yet."

Layla squeezed her eyes shut. Colors exploded behind them, lighting up the blackness.

**VI.**

Will was in the recording studio late into the night, so when the three of them got home from dinner Gunnar and Zoey stayed downstairs, and Layla went to the upstairs apartment, to sit alone in the dark.

Will was right: the heater did suck in his apartment. She took out the Predators hoodie he'd given her the other night and pulled it over her body, then after a moment grabbed her guitar.

She was supposed to be going through the demos Edgehill sent over, but instead her hands skipped over the strings, picking out a chord. The strumming echoed through the empty room, filling the dark space around her.

For some reason, it reminded her of being back home. When she was growing up, their house in Connecticut was so big that sometimes Layla felt like she could scream herself hoarse, and no one would hear her.

She closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted, and set her guitar next to the bed.

Strange. Until she'd had her writing session with Gunnar, Layla had never really thought about whether or not she liked it. Playing her guitar. Even singing.

Layla couldn't remember who gave her the first guitar she owned. She didn't ever remember wanting to play the guitar. The only memories she could conjure were long, boring Saturday afternoons in her guitar teacher's living room, wishing she could stay home sleeping and watching TV and doing whatever it was other kids did on Saturday afternoons – things Layla seen in TV shows and read about in books, but had never actually done.

Not that she'd ever had time to be a kid, even when she'd been one. In her parents' minds, childhood was something Layla could easily overcome, if she just tried hard enough.

Whenever she tried to think it now, all that came to mind were those Saturday afternoons. Bored, frustrated, lonely.

She laid back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. The lights overhead glimmered like stars, like a constellation strung right above her.

Slowly, Layla slipped her hands under her shirt, touching her bare, flat belly. Then she put both hands on either side, pressing down slightly.

Nothing happened. She didn't expect it to, but still. She pressed down again. It didn't feel any different.

She'd wanted some kind of proof, that things were different. She felt it enough on the outside, with being swollen and bloated and tired, plus constantly barfing. But in some ways, it still felt like nothing had changed at all.

Her mom used to watch her in the living room, practicing her dance routines and listening to her sing along to the radio. She loved to dress up, dance in plastic Disney princess shoes in the kitchen. She'd scratch the floor with her vigor, and back then Mom wouldn't scream, because she was dancing, and her mom would just smile and say, "you're my star!"

Her mom wanted a star. Not a Layla. And the less her mother saw her as a star, Layla realized all she'd ever been was diminishing returns. After all, her mother had given up her chance to be Miss America, to take Hollywood by storm. And what did she get in return?

Second place. A faded star.

Again, Layla thought of that spinning girl in the golden room.

She could hide it, from the rest of the world. Protect it. From the people who wanted to hurt it, who would try to make it into something it wasn't, or would try and screw up its life. Layla would do whatever it took, to protect her star – from cameras, from paparazzi, from the tabloids and the newspapers and the random internet haters. From Jeff. From her own parents, if she had to.

From rumors, from loneliness, from boredom. From feeling unloved, imperfect, second. From feeling empty inside.

No one could see it, or touch it, or hurt it. Nobody could tell it that it wasn't good enough, or second place, or screwed up or empty or nothing. Nobody could ever make it – make her _baby_– feel like she was less than someone's everything.

Her hands were still on her belly. She clasped her fingers together, lacing them over stomach.

Her baby was safe. Both girls were, with Layla. The one inside her, protected from all the fucked-up and broken shit everywhere, and the one already safe in that room, hidden from the world forever.

Always safe, always loved. Always wanted.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Didn't mean to go SO long without an update, but work has been slowing down any time I have to write, and canon keeps happening faster than I can crank this story out. **

**This was the most fun chapter of anything I've written in a long time. Writing Will as a babysitter/part-time therapist to Daphne Conrad is something I didn't realize I needed until I did. **

**I.**

The demos sucked.

There was no way to soften it; they just did. They either sounded like something a Disney channel star would auto-tune her way through on some glittery music video with the Jonas Brothers, or trying too hard to be the next Taylor Swift. Whichever end of the spectrum they were on, they were all terrible.

Layla threw her headphones down in frustration after the fifth one, not even able to make it through the first verse. How was anyone supposed to take her seriously when she had to sound like this?

"Wow," a voice said from behind her. "That doesn't look good."

Layla glanced up. Zoey was standing in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee. She blinked tiredly at Layla, pointing to her headphones, which had skittered somewhere under the couch.

"I take it you didn't like what you heard," Zoey said.

Layla shook her head. "Not particularly."

"What are they?"

"Demos." Layla sighed. "Edgehill sent over, like, forty songs for me to go through."

"And what? They all suck?"

She made a face. "Pretty much."

Layla went over to where the headphones had fallen.

"I have to pick something my fans would like," she said, plugging them back into her laptop. "Problem is, everything I'm listening to sounds like Kidz Bop, or something."

Zoey was watching her, an odd expression on her face.

"What?" Layla asked.

"Just, weird is all," the other girl said. "To say that. 'My fans'."

Layla sat there for a moment, her face heating up.

"Right," she said. "Right, uh, well. Sorry. I mean –"

"Don't worry about it," Zoey said, waving her off. "It's just a thought. And anyway, I wanted to talk to you."

Layla blinked. "Ummm. Okay. Sure."

"The other night." Zoey laced her fingers together. "I'm sorry. About what I said, with you and Will. I didn't mean to sound so negative, or like I was attacking you, or anything like that. I didn't mean anything by it, I promise. I just…it wasn't my business to butt into your relationship."

It wasn't very often that Layla didn't have a response at the ready – years of pageant coaches and her mother's constant grilling had done their job probably better than it should have – but all she could do was stare at Zoey for a moment.

"It's okay, she said, finally.

Then, she added, "I'm sorry if I sounded defensive."

Layla couldn't remember the last time she'd apologized to a woman. Or anyone, for that matter. And actually meant it. She couldn't remember if she had even _felt_ defensive that night at the restaurant, but Layla still felt like she needed to apologize to Zoey for something. For some reason.

"It's okay," Zoey said, and Layla immediately felt better, not knowing why.

"I just wanted you to know," Zoey continued, "that just because we've known Will longer, that doesn't mean we're going to automatically take his side."

"What do you mean?" Layla asked.

"I mean," Zoey said, "if anything ever gets…you know, weird with him, you can always talk to me about it. If you ever needed to. You don't have to feel like, just because I'm dating Gunnar, or because I've known Will longer than you have, I'm automatically gonna believe him more than you. You can talk to me about anything."

She stared at Zoey for a moment.

"Why would there be a need to take sides?" Layla said sharply.

"You know." Zoey shrugged. "I mean, Will can be weird, in a lot of ways."

"Weird how?" She could feel her face getting warmer, and fought the tears prickling in the back of her throat.

Shit, shit, shit. She would NOT cry. Especially about this; especially to Zoey, of all people.

Zoey looked away.

"This is coming out all wrong," she muttered. "I didn't mean –"

"Look," Layla said, trying not to let her voice shake. "I don't know what you think Will is like, but he's not weird or confusing, or anything to me.

She picked up her laptop, her pencil and notebook.

"He's always been a great boyfriend," she said, heading towards Will's bedroom. "And you were right. I don't need you butting into my relationship like you know anything."

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, giving Zoey one last look.

"Because you don't know shit," Layla said, before slamming the door behind her.

**II.**

She stayed shut in Will's bedroom for the rest of the day, listening to demos and pretending to figure out which ones she wanted to sing but instead ended up filling her legal pad with sentences about the girl in the spinning room, golden like the stars. She didn't know what she wanted to name that little girl, but she doodled some in the margins, names like _Aynsley _and _Rebecca_ and _Clementine_ and _Arianna_.

She came downstairs when she heard Zoey's car leave for work, and Will's bike roared into the driveway. She crossed "Clementine" off the list, as she heard the front door open and close, followed by the sound of Will's footsteps – it was too trendy.

"Hey." She went to Will, throwing her arms around him and kissing his cheek. He smelled like long nights and too much bad coffee, and he blinked tiredly at her as he bent down to give her a brief hug. "How'd it go? Lay down the next big hit?"

He smiled, or tried to.

"Ehhh," he said, putting down his motorcycle helmet on the table. "All right. Not crazy 'bout the song."

"Then why'd you pick it?"

Will sighed. "I dunno. Cause Jeff's been on me about picking the songs, and we need to get them before someone else puts them on hold. And cause if I don't stop bein' picky, Jeff's gonna pick 'em himself, and I want SOME control over what goes on this record."

He ran a hand over his face with a groan. "As much as I can, anyway."

"So, what," Layla asked. "You pick the songs that suck the least?"

He shrugged. "Pretty much."

"And you really don't think any of the choices are good ones? I mean, are there any hits?"

"I'm sure they are," Will said, "but that doesn't mean I have to like 'em."

Layla just watched him for a moment, as he took off his coat and tossed it on the futon next to his bed.

"But anyway," he said, "it's not about what I want. It's about my brand. What's good for the label."

"And that translates to you hating what you're doing?"

Instead of answering her, Will put his hands on his hips, looking away.

The kitchen door slammed shut. For a brief second, Layla thought it was Zoey and remembered their earlier conversation, but it was only Gunnar, holding a fast food sack in one hand.

"Hey," he said, nodding to her and Will. "How did the vocals go?"

Will sucked in a breath, then blew it out slowly.

Gunnar nodded. "That bad, huh?"

Will rolled his eyes.

Gunnar held the bag out to him. "Well, you want some cheese fries to make up for it? Got an extra order."

"I thought we had dinner plans," Layla jumped in, before he could answer. Mostly because Will DID say that they could catch a bite to eat together if he didn't get home too late, but also because the smell of Gunnar's cheese fries was making her feel sick to her stomach.

And also, because she was seriously fighting the urge to rip the grease-spattered bag from Gunnar's hands, and scarf down both orders of those cheese fries before either Will or Gunnar could say anything thing about it. But only if the smell didn't make her vomit first.

Will glanced between the two of them.

"I guess we did," he said finally.

She nestled to his side, smiling up at him. He drew away from her.

"Gimme ten minutes?" he said. "I need to shower."

Her hand was still reached out, where it had been wrapped around his body. Now it hung, awkward, half-poised in the air. It reminded her of the mannequins in the shop window, the other day at the store. And that made her think of the silver dress, the perfect storm of herself that she made in front of that mirror, and the way Will didn't even notice she was there.

She listened to his footsteps, heavy and burdened as he headed to the bathroom. The tired slump of his shoulders, as they once again were turned away from her.

Gunnar glanced over at her.

"Guess I'm eatin' for two," he said. "You seen Zoey around?"

Layla shrugged. "Not since this morning."

With that, Gunnar left. Which was a good thing, because those cheese fries were making her stomach do some terrible things.

She sat down, trying to control herself. The flip-flopping in her gut didn't seem to want to stop, but at least her vision didn't grey anymore. Even if she could still smell the cheese fries, long after Gunnar had left the room.

What did Zoey know, really. She didn't know Will the way she did; _couldn't _know him the same way.

Zoey couldn't know how it felt, when Will wrapped his arms around Layla in bed. Or how it felt when his arm would slide around her waist, making her feel small and vulnerable and completely able to fit into every space he made for her in his life.

She didn't know what it felt like to look at him, and feel like she was so close to finally feeling like the empty space inside herself was beginning to fill up; the cracks that had always a part of her starting to feel like, at last, they could seal.

Zoey had no idea what she was talking about. Shecouldn't know how it made Layla feel to finally look at herself in the mirror and see not just what you were lacking, or who you failed to be, but somebody worthwhile.

Someone valued. Someone who was chosen.

Layla understood all those things, when she was with Will.

**III.**

They were in Louisville tonight.

Layla watched from her spot backstage as Luke grinned and strummed and belted his way through "Summer Thing", which she could remember hearing on every radio station – not just the country ones – for about a four-month stretch last year, end of April to the beginning of August. One of the guys on _American Hitmaker_ – his name was Jase, he'd totally play up the "aww shucks" homegrown country boy thing for the audience and then called her a bitch when she wouldn't give him her number when the cameras weren't rolling – played this song on the show once. He got kicked off that week.

Rayna James and her kids were here. Layla tried not to notice them, but they were hard to miss. Especially the little one, who acted like she was on a retractable leash when it came to Luke. Everywhere he went, she wasn't far behind, and when he wasn't directly in sight she was constantly calling his name, looking in every nook and cranny for him.

The older one, though – Macy? Maddie? – didn't seem nearly as taken with her mom's new boyfriend as her sister. Instead she preferred to sulk on the couch backstage, looking bored, and didn't go to the wings to watch the show with her mother and sister. Though it wasn't her mother's clear lack of trying to make her do it.

Layla couldn't help watch the older girl hunched on the couch, texting on her phone and every now and then letting out this colossal sigh, as if she just HAD to let everybody know just how bored she was with the whole affair.

Layla's own mother would have dragged her to the edge of that stage. Made her un-cross her legs and keep her hands in her lap, hissing at her to "sit like a lady". She would have made her daughter watch the show the entire show, and if she breathed a word –

Layla shook her head. As if a Luke Wheeler concert was the kind of place her own mother would have ever wanted her to be.

Rayna had surprised the crowd onstage earlier in Luke's set, joining him for "Ball & Chain". Then when that was over, he'd kept Rayna onstage to sing another one of his duets – a number one he'd sung with Carrie Underwood about a year back, called "Sweet Melodies", and asked Rayna's daughters to join them.

The little girl had been thrilled. Maddie less so. But still, she got up to sing.

And they sang beautifully.

Layla watched them both. She wondered when Rayna would get her daughters started. By the time she was Maddie's age, she'd already spent half her life in the spotlight. And with talent like both of those girls had – and they were incredible, even Layla had to admit, more talented than most of the girls she'd seen in the pageant circuit when she had been their ages – there was no way those two weren't going to live a life where Big Things Happened.

As soon as the song was over, though, Maddie had returned to her couch. Occasionally Layla would catch her texting somebody, with that smile on her face that Layla knew only came from girls who were texting somebody they probably didn't tell their mothers about.

"Summer Thing" ended with a crowd sing-along. From the opposite stage wing, Layla could see the little girl, Daphne, singing along. Her mouth was moving, her body twisting and turning to the melodies, as thousands of drunk concertgoers screamed along with her, drowning her out. She looked so natural, so scruffy and breezy and free. Layla couldn't remember ever doing something like that at her age, not when her mom needed her to stand up straight and smile for the judges.

Luke hoisted his guitar in the air, like it was some prize or trophy. The crowd roared along, the screams getting louder and louder. Then she watched as he leaned over to the raised stand where his drummer was positioned, and he had a can of Miller Light. Tipping it to the audience, he knocked the entire thing back, then held it back out to the crowd and toasted them with a nod.

The crowd ate it up, and the band started the intro to "I'll Have A Drink With That".

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. She whirled around, and Will stood behind her, getting ready for the encore that was coming up, where they would both join Luke onstage. He'd disappeared somewhere back towards the busses two songs into her set, and she'd tried not to look back in the stage wings during the rest of it and hope to see him there, waiting for her, watching her perform.

He wasn't there.

It wasn't like he hadn't seen her set a million times. Or stood back there and watched her perform it. But _come on_. She was his girlfriend. And she _always _came out to watch his.

"You got any preference for dinner?" he asked. "I figured we'd head out soon. Get a jump on traffic."

She kept her eyes on Luke. He had the entire crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Will was the same way, whenever he performed. The audience LOVED him.

Especially the girls. She saw the way they looked at him. And how he looked back.

"Layla?"

She shook her head. "I don't care."

He sighed. "Okay. Pizza it is."

"Not pizza."

"You JUST said you didn't care."

"Well, I don't want pizza."

"Then what do you want?"

"I don't know, I just don't want pizza!"

Will made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat, looking away.

Layla watched Luke sweep his arm across the audience, running from one end of the stage to the other. She crossed her arms over her stomach, wincing when they brushed against her breasts. They felt swollen all the time now. None of her bras fit anymore; they all cut marks into her shoulders, long red indents on her skin she caught in the mirror when she looked in the mirror.

"If I have to eat pizza again, I'm gonna kill myself," she snapped.

Will turned to stare at her.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered.

He turned and walked away, shoulders squared.

She turned back to the stage. Luke was giving his final bows.

"Thank y'all for comin' out to see us tonight!" he screamed into the mic. "Thank y'all for spending your Saturday night with us!"

Why did he have to repeat everything? Whatever, the crowd was probably too drunk to care. They'd been pretty smashed when Layla was doing her set, and that had been almost three hours ago.

She didn't know why she said that "kill yourself" comment. She was just annoyed because her boobs hurt and she didn't want pizza and she had felt like puking her set but she held it in, and waited until she was back in her dressing room before sinking to her knees and barfing in the trash can next to her make-up table, because she couldn't hold it in any longer to make it to the bathroom. And then she'd stayed there, shaking and sweating and still feeling the boom of the music and the roar of the crowd in her ears, the bass thudding through her like a heartbeat while she huddled over that stupid trash can and kept puking until she couldn't breathe.

Luke gave the crowd one last sweep with his arm.

"Thank you Louisville!" he hollered. "And good night!"

She still couldn't breathe.

**IV.**

She had to find Will.

He wasn't in his dressing room, and wasn't on the tour bus with the guys in his band. She was walking around the now-empty backstage area, wondering why her boyfriend always seemed so good at disappearing. Especially when Layla wanted to find him.

But when she heard his voice, she stopped in her tracks, surprised that she'd wished for him and he was actually there. Not like after the Festival, when he vanished off the face of the earth and no matter how many times she called and texted, he never answered, not once, and just when she was about to give up hoping there he was, in Pittsburgh.

And he'd left her behind. On purpose.

But here he was. She could hear his voice, low and reassuring, and she followed it.

"What are you talking about?" she heard him say. "You and your sister sounded amazing out there. Everyone loved you!"

"We didn't practice," said another voice. Small and whispery, a child's voice, and it was wavering, followed up a sniffle. "Maddie didn't want to."

Layla took a step closer, peeking around the corner. There was Will, sitting on the couch behind the stage, still in his hat and stage clothes. And beside him, Daphne Conrad, her face red and splotchy like she'd been crying, her short legs dangling off the edge of the couch, and her arms crossed over her chest.

She wrinkled her small face, then added, "I wanted to, but Maddie was hanging out with her stupid boyfriend."

Daphne sniffed again, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

"Maddie didn't even want to sing," she added. "She just wants to spend all her time with stupid Colt. He doesn't even like singing. He doesn't like anything." She snorted. "And she's ALWAYS texting him. She keeps getting her phone taken away because she's always texting him when Mom tells her not to."

"That sucks," Will said.

Daphne blinked tears away. "You think so?" she asked, her voice small.

He nodded. "She's your sister and she blew you off for some guy she just met? I'd be hurt, too."

"Yeah," Daphne said. Then she looked up at Will, biting her lip.

"They kiss," she said suddenly.

Will blinked. "Really."

"Yeah." Daphne sniffed again, shaking her head. "I saw it."

She kicked her legs, staring at the tops of her boots.

"She acts so stupid with him," Daphne said. "Like she doesn't like me anymore. She just spends all her time texting him and never wants to do anything because she might miss him talking to her."

She threw her hands up in the air. "I don't even like Colt. He's a butthole."

Will tried not to laugh.

"Boys tend to be," Layla said, stepping into view.

Daphne and Will looked up, surprised. Like they'd been in their own private little world, safe from everybody else, and she'd just burst into it.

But Will didn't look mad at her, so she took another step towards them, and took a seat on the arm of the couch.

"And for the record," she said to Daphne, "it completely sucks that your sister is blowing you off for a boyfriend. That's Girl Code 101: never ditch your friends the second you get a boyfriend. You tell Maddie that, the next time you see her."

Daphne grinned. Some stray tears blinked free from her eyes when she did.

"I'm never getting a boyfriend," she said to Layla and Will. "I don't want to act like she does."

"It might be different," Layla replied. "When you do have one."

But Daphne was shaking her head, so hard that the end of her ponytail was smacking Will in the shoulder.

"No," she said firmly. "Boyfriends suck. All the time."

She swung her legs out again.

"Except Luke," she amended.

Then she sighed, adding, "I miss him."

"You wish he wasn't on tour?" Will asked.

Daphne nodded. She looked up at Will, and her eyes were suddenly round with tears.

"He used to be around all the time," she said tearfully. "And he took us out to dinner, and he let me sit in the front seat."

Layla and Will exchanged glances.

"He said we could go riding," Daphne whispered. She blinked, tears slipping down her cheeks. "He used to say we'd get to ride horses with him. But we never did."

Will gave Layla a look out of the corner of his eye, then slipped an arm around Daphne's small shoulder, drawing her into his hold.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said. "But you know he's just busy. It doesn't mean he doesn't care about you."

"But I miss him!" she wailed, suddenly bursting into tears on Will's shirt.

He looked up at Layla helplessly. She stared back. Neither of them could do anything else as Daphne cried, Will's arm still around her and his hand gently touching the top of her blonde head.

"Shhh," he said quietly. "Hey, hey, shhh. Come on, it's all right."

She had a flash of him doing the same thing to her, a few weeks ago. Suddenly Layla wanted his arms around her own body, telling her that it would all be okay.

Layla probably should have felt worse about being jealous of a nine-year-old. But she didn't. And she didn't know what that made her.

Daphne lifted her head out of Will's arms and blinked at them.

"Why do people leave?" she whispered.

Will peered down at her. "You mean Luke?"

"No." Daphne pulled herself upright, out of Will's hold. She didn't have his arm around her anymore, she just had her own, and the look of holding onto herself to stay in one piece was the loneliest thing Layla had ever seen.

"Everybody keeps leaving," she said. She pulled her short legs up underneath her, and tugged on the lace of her boot. "Daddy moved out, and then Mom almost died, and now she has Luke, but he's never home. And Maddie ran away because she hates us, and how she spends all her time with Colt and doesn't want to talk to me ever. She doesn't even act upset about anything, even though nobody's here anymore."

She stared at her shoes.

"Then Peggy got killed," she whispered. "And Daddy's upset, and now he doesn't want to see us anymore."

She twirled her shoelace around one finger. Her face looked too heavy, for nine.

"And people keep going away," she said, more to herself than Layla and Will. "Paw-Paw, Aunt Tandy…Daddy."

Then she wiped her eyes again.

"I told him I was sorry," Daphne whispered, and new tears streamed down her face. "That Peggy died. I said it so many times!"

She gulped, as another sob rippled through her body.

"But it didn't help," she cried. "He's still so mad and now I don't see my daddy anymore!"

Will's face flickered. Something that might have looked like total despair crossed his face, but Layla couldn't figure why. He just looked so sad for a moment, before his expression flickered back to the way it was, and she was looking at her boyfriend again, not an alien in her boyfriend's Stetson and worn plaid shirt.

"Hey," he murmured. He pulled a crying Daphne closer to him, until the little girl was almost in his lap, then cupped her chin in the palm of his hand. He tilted her face up to his, until their blue eyes were locked only on each other.

"Listen to me," he said, quiet but firm. "That's got nothing to do with you, all right?"

Will bent down closer to her, until she didn't have to crane her neck so far up to look at him.

"How your dad's feeling is not your fault," he said.

Daphne peered up at Will, her eyes red. She was still crying, her sobs fading into the occasional hiccup.

"Sometimes," he said quietly, "people just…they get too sad, and they feel like they can't be around anybody anymore. But it's not because they're mad at you. It's because they don't know what else to do."

Layla stared at him, eyes wide.

"That's stupid," Daphne said flatly. "Why would you just sit around being sad all the time? Instead of being happy with other people?"

Will's face fell.

"I don't know, kiddo," he said, his voice sounding very small. "Sometimes, they just…think it's too hard to be happy."

Layla swallowed. There a lump in her throat she hadn't even realized was there.

Daphne sniffed.

"It's still stupid," she said.

Will shifted, pulling her closer to him. They sat there in silence, two blonde heads bent close. Layla watched them, and felt like she standing by herself, observing them from behind plate glass.

"Maddie said that we'd stay together," Daphne said, after a moment. "And now she's with Colt. And Mom has Luke. And Daddy has nobody."

She stared at the tips of her boots.

"And neither do I," she said quietly.

**V.**

It was almost midnight, but while she'd been exhausted ten minutes ago, Layla suddenly felt wide awake, following Will and Daphne Conrad as they wound through the now-empty backstage area. Back here, the busses were parked and the load-out crew was finishing the last bit of post-show packing. They passed through the rows of trucks with Luke Wheeler's face plastered on the sides, twelve feet tall and smirking down at them from the brim of his cowboy hat.

They ended up in an area backstage Layla had never been to, at this venue or any other, almost at the very edge of the grassy parking lot. There were tire treads worn into the ground from where the fans had been parked earlier, although this far back there weren't as many broken beer bottles and crumpled cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon all over the ground. There was an old wooden fence that looked like it was barely propping itself up in the ground running the length of the field, a sagging picnic bench with nails sticking out of the top, and a rusted old grill that someone was actually barbequing on, cooking hot dogs over an open flame with one hand and drinking a beer with the other.

A few of the crew members recognized Will, giving him high fives or slapping him on the shoulder, calling his name and saying hello. Will obviously knew them, but Layla could only see unfamiliar faces.

"Does this happen at the end of every show?" she said, looking around at all the people. Some of them looked like roadies, others band members, and a few of them were wearing the polo shirts and black pants that were uniform of the venue security guards she'd recognized, running around and standing backstage before the show began.

Will had Daphne's hand in his own. The little girl seemed just as surprised as Layla, gaping at everyone around her and then looking back at Will like she couldn't quite believe any of this was real.

"Not every show," he said. "But pretty often. When we're not close to any big cities, usually there's a grill, some extra food lying around."

"And this is where you go?" She imagined Will with all these strangers, and could only imagine that night in the hotel bar back in Minneapolis, when he dove off the bar.

He shrugged.

"Sometimes," he said vaguely.

Then he tugged on Daphne's small hand, pulling her towards the grill.

"How 'bout it, Daff," he said. "You like ketchup, mustard, or both?"

"Both," she said.

He smiled back at her.

"Ooooh," he said, eyebrows raised. "Adventurous. I like that."

Daphne looked at the barbeque, then back at Will.

"You know," she said, a smile on her face, "Maddie and her stupid boyfriend don't get invited to super-secret hot dog parties."

"No, she doesn't," Will agreed. "That's all you."

She grinned up at him, dimples flashing. That expression was one Layla recognized well – pure adoration.

"Let's eat!" Will said, when they had their plates in hand.

Layla watched the two of them, walking away from her. Even in the dark, it was funny, how alike they looked. With their blonde hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, they could almost be related. Especially the protective way he gripped the little girl's hand, holding her close, never letting go of her. It was like she mattered to him.

The smell of the hot dogs was starting to get to her, and the smoke was making her eyes tear, so she had to turn away from the grill. Her stomach grumbled, but she knew if she ate something it would just come back up ten minutes later, so instead she walked over to where Will and Daphne were eating, trying to ignore the urge to grab ten hot dogs with ketchup and gulp them all down at once.

God, she really was losing it.

She took a seat on the bench where Daphne and Will were sitting, eating their hot dogs like a couple of conspirators.

She tried to smile at the little girl. "Good?" she asked.

Daphne smiled. She had ketchup on the edge of her mouth.

"Good," she said after a moment, her face thoughtful, "but needs more ketchup."

She picked up her plate and went back over to the barbeque. Will watched her go with a smile.

Layla took the spot she had just vacated.

"You didn't eat?" Will asked.

She shook her head. "Not really hungry."

He took another bite.

"Least it's not pizza," he said, raising his eyebrows.

She looked away. Picked at the hem of her sundress. It was chillier in Florida than she thought it would be, for the middle of winter. She'd been hoping for some real heat.

"So, how long has this been going on?" she asked.

Will wasn't really paying attention to her.

"What?" He slapped hands with a guy who Layla actually recognized, the bassist from his band. "I dunno. Some of the guys just took me to one a few weeks ago."

"And you never thought to invite me?" Layla asked.

Will shrugged. "Didn't really think it was your scene."

Layla quirked an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"

Will frowned.

"Meaning…" he threw his hands up, shaking his head. "A lot of guys, a lot of drinking, loud music. It can get kinda rowdy, is all."

"Then why'd you bring Daphne here?"

"I'm keepin' an eye on her." He shook his head. "It's not a big deal. I just didn't think you'd have any fun."

"How would you know if you never asked?" Layla said.

"Will!" Daphne's voice broke the moment; the little girl rushed back over to them, grabbing Will's hand in her own. "Will! They have s'mores! Come on!"

He glanced back at Layla, taking a deep breath.

"S'mores, huh?" He smiled down at the little girl. "Lead the way."

He didn't look back, as he followed the girl into the crowd.

Layla watched them from the bench. She saw the way Will held Daphne's hand, then bent down, until he was almost eye-level with her. Daphne reached up, barely able to touch the brim of his hat. Will took it off, setting it on top of her head, and they both laughed when it nearly covered her entire face.

Layla watched the two of them, their blonde heads and wide smiles, and her heart ballooned so big it felt like it was pressing on her glass bones. The weight of it against her paper-thin lungs felt so tight so she had to look away and breathe breathe breathe breathe BREATH, until she could make it go away.

**VI.**

It was close to three AM by the time they trailed into bed, the hotel so deadly quiet that it felt like they were the only two people in the building.

Will hadn't said anything to her since dinner, and she hadn't offered anything up. Layla didn't want to get accused of baiting Will into another stupid not-argument, so she kept quiet while they drove back to the hotel, after Rayna carried a sleeping, ketchup-slathered Daphne off to bed.

Now, she pulled the covers over herself and watched his reflection in the bathroom mirror, as he splashed some cold water on his face and finished brushing his teeth.

"That was really sweet," she said finally. She smoothed the sheets down over her legs. "What you did for Daphne."

Will's reflection shrugged at her.

"S'fine," was all he said.

Layla crossed her arms around her legs.

"Still," she said. "That was nice. She looked like she needed someone to listen to her."

She heard him sigh.

"Yeah," he replied. He came out of the bathroom in a pair of boxers and nothing else, skin smelling like the bland, scratchy hotel soap as he climbed into bed beside her.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked.

Will glanced at her.

"Why?" he parroted.

"Yeah. You barely know Daphne."

He lay down in the mattress, rubbing a hand over his face.

"It just," he said, as she felt the mattress dip with his weight, the covers ruffle as he drew them over his body, "it can't be easy on her. You know? With Rayna in that bad car accident, and the stuff with her granddad, and her stepmom getting murdered."

He shook his head. "It's like all this shit had to happen at once. I feel bad for the poor kid. And it sucks when you feel like nobody in your life has any time for you cause they got their own problems."

Layla stared at her knees.

"Yeah," she said, her voice soft. "It does."

She peered over at him, tugging the covers up to her chest. His face was heavy and lined with shadows, and for the first time, she was completely aware of the fact that he was much older than she was.

Strange, how when it came to Daphne, he seemed younger. And with her, he looked older than he'd ever looked.

"Sorry about what I said earlier," she mumbled. "About dinner."

Will sighed.

"Don't worry 'bout it."

"I didn't mean it."

"S'okay."

"I don't know why I said –"

"Layla," Will said tiredly. "If you hate pizza that much, just say you hate pizza."

"I didn't hate pizza."

"Well," he said, pulling the covers over himself, "okay."

He turned over – facing the wall instead of her – and curled into his spot on the mattress. No part of him was touching her body in the bed. She wondered how much of that was because of their stupid fight earlier, if he was really still mad at her.

Layla watched him, the way he was turned away from her, the tense line of his shoulders.

"Apparently we don't need to be making dinner plans," she said quietly, "if there's always these hot dog parties going on."

Will groaned. "Not this again."

"You seriously never thought to invite me to any of those things?" Layla shook her head. "I mean, I AM your girlfriend."

"I'm sorry, all right?" he snapped. "I didn't 'not include' you on purpose."

"Well, did you just think you needed something to yourself? Is that it?"

"No!" Will looked over at her. "Jesus, Layla, I have NO idea what to say to make this NOT about you. I didn't invite you because I didn't think you wanted to be invited."

"Well," she said, her voice brittle, "I did."

Will put his head in his hands.

"Well," he said. "I'm sorry. I will, next time."

Then he turned back over to his own spot on the bed.

Layla knew she should take that as a sign that the argument was over, but she hugged her knees to her chest again, hugging herself together.

"It's not the not being invited that bothers me," she said, her voice soft. "It's like you have this whole other life that I'm not a part of."

She stared at her knees. "And you don't want me to be a part of it."

Will shifted under the covers.

"You got all that from a barbeque?" he muttered.

"I got all that because I don't know anything about you," Layla said.

When Will didn't say anything, she said, "Because you won't let me."

Will hunched over, groaning.

"What d'ya want me to ask you?" he asked, after a minute.

"Nothing," she said, and then quickly realized that was the wrong question. Will never outright asked her anything, or let her ask him questions. For whatever reason he had some of his guard down tonight, and she had to take it.

At the same time, she hated that he couldn't just work out what she wanted to know, figure out what she needed.

Will was still turned away from her.

She knew it was petty, but couldn't help it.

"Tell me," she said, her voice low, "what was going through your head the night of the Festival."

That got his attention, like she knew it would. He looked up at her, and his whole face drained of color, then hardened. He took a second, like he was trying to remember how to breathe and be alive, then glared at her. With one swift motion, he pushed the covers back and stomped into the bathroom, grabbing his sweaty clothes off the chair in the corner before slamming the door behind him.

She stared at the closed bathroom door. Behind it, she could hear Will pulling his clothes on, the zip of a zipper and the swish of cloth against skin. Under the door, she could see a line of golden light, peeking out into the darkness.

She looked over at the closed door again. Remembered the way he'd slammed it in her face.

**VII.**

Will wasn't speaking to her the next morning, and he barely looked at her as they waited backstage for soundcheck. Layla occupied herself with straightening the hem of her dress, and Will plucked a few chords and pretended to re-tune his guitar.

"Luke said y'all would be back here."

Layla looked up. Rayna James was walking towards them, a microphone attached to her waist. She was doing another few songs for tonight's show – they'd flown into Charlotte a few hours ago – performing her new single as well as "Ball and Chain". It was all part of a livestream she was doing of her set, to promote her new album and record label.

"Is something the matter?" Will asked, seeing the look on Rayna's face.

Rayna looked at them, then shut the door of the dressing room behind her. She took a deep breath, then looked up at the two of them, and Layla thought for a moment she saw tears in the woman's eyes.

"I just wanted to thank y'all," she said. Her voice was steady, as always. "For what you did last night. Daphne can't stop talking about it." Rayna smiled at them. "it made her whole week. Heck, y'all probably made her whole damn year."

Will grinned.

"It's all right," he said. "It's not a big deal."

Something in Rayna's face changed.

"No," she insisted. "It really is. That was…"

She shook her head, and this time the tears were visible, and being blinked away as quickly as they arrived.

"She needed that," Rayna said quietly. "So, thank you for it."

Will looked down at the toes of his boots. Layla tugged at the hem of her dress, and Rayna put her hands on her hips. None of them could look at each other for a moment, and the air felt so heavy that nobody was quite ready to tip the balance and say the next word.

So it was probably a good thing that none of them did.

The door to the dressing room opened, and a stage hand poked his head in the doorway.

"Excuse me, Miss James," he said. "Bucky said it's time for your soundcheck. And Mr. Wheeler wants to run through your song once before his meet-and-greet."

There was a long pause, and then Rayna sighed.

"Thank you," she said, in that smooth, professional tone that Layla knew made her a superstar. "Tell Bucky I'll be right there."

The stagehand nodded, and shut the door behind him. The earlier spell broken, Rayna looked back at the two of them, and they all took a deep breath.

"It wasn't a problem," Will said, like their conversation had never been interrupted. "Really."

Then, he added, "Daphne's a great kid."

"She is," Layla said, nodding. "She's so sweet."

Rayna bit her lip, and then there were tears on her cheeks.

"Oh my god," she said, and dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "I am so sorry for this, y'all. I didn't mean to get all weepy here".

"It's okay," Will said, looking intensely uncomfortable.

Layla hurried to get her a tissue from her dressing table, and Rayna patted her face dry with it.

"Thank you," Rayna said to her, in that same tone she'd used on the stagehand. Then she straightened herself up, and smoothed her face free of any sign of emotion.

"Look," Rayna said to them, clearing her throat. "I know y'all two aren't parents. But when your kids are hurtin', it's the most helpless feeling in the world. And with Daphne sometimes, I know she tries SO hard to act like everything's all right. But lately…"

Rayna closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"I just wanted to let you guys know," she said to Layla and Will, "how much last night meant to her. How much it meant to ME. I owe you two for this. And if y'all ever need anything, just ask. All right?"

When Rayna turned back to Layla and Will, she gave the two of them a smile Layla thought even her own mother would have approved of. It was the look of someone who had everything and anything completely under her control. As if the woman hadn't just been crying a moment ago.

"Good luck tonight," she said to them both. "Y'all are both gonna knock 'em dead."

"Good luck with your livestream," Layla said.

Rayna smiled at them once more before walking out. You couldn't even tell, by the expression on her face, that she'd been crying a moment ago.

Will didn't look back at her, just picked up his guitar and walked out. Layla watched him leave, his reflection turned away from her in the dressing table mirror, and watched the door swing shut behind him.

She closed her eyes. Lights sparked behind them like fireflies. Her room smelled like too many flowers. It made her head spin. She already felt dizzy. She breathed through her nose to settle her churning stomach, and with a hand on her belly she focused on that girl in the spinning room. She was spinning through the haze of flowers and firefly lights, controlling her entire oblivion.


End file.
